Lauren Stone

Our Mindful Counsellor offers a warm, confident, compassionate, safe space to discuss your concerns and difficulties. I'm an Integrative counsellor and registered with the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP) and work to deliver effective interventions to adults who are experiencing a range of difficulties.

The aim of the following therapies is to enable people to process difficult events that are preventing them from reaching their full potential and to bring an understanding and compassion for themselves.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) seeks out your thinking patterns and provides skills to relieve symptoms before connecting with how your beliefs started. CBT brings an understanding to emotions, feelings, thinking patterns and how they impact our behaviour. The techniques' used in this therapy focus on your thinking patterns and how we can use these discoveries to improve your well-being.

Person-Centred Therapy supports you to explore your beliefs, feelings and current difficulty making you more aware of why feelings and behaviours are happening. The underlining value of this therapy is for Our Mindful Counsellor to accept who you are, being honest with you while looking at the world from your perspective. This encourages bringing your difficulties to the sessions giving you more independence and not being directed by Our Mindful Counsellor.

Psychodynamic Therapy is about supporting and encouraging you to find the cause for reoccurring patterns of thinking and behaviour that you may not be aware of happening that keeps you feeling stuck from past events. Transference is also discussed in sessions; this happens when redirected feelings from significant life events are reflected towards Our Mindful Counsellor. These moments bring understanding of the difficulties you face that originate from these thinking patterns enabling us to discuss why and how they impact your relationships today.

At Our Mindful Counsellor, I'm passionate about supporting people to live well with pain whether physical, mental or emotional. As part of our counselling pathway, we learn and understand more about ourselves through self -inquiry and gain insight as to why we need to care for our own mental health and to continue building resilience.

There is a huge amount of value in self-inquiry as it enables you to find out who you are and directs you towards  being the best person you can be. This self-knowledge provides the opportunity to let go of habitual patterns and inner criticisms, as well as other people's opinions of who you should be. Self-inquiry asks is there a difference between who you truly are and how you are living, creating greater self-awareness. Throughout this process you will be able to build resilience and grace needed to move toward what serves you and away from what and whom does not. The more you look within for direction and make appropriate changes guided by your self-inquiry, the smaller the distance between who you are and how you are living becomes. Counselling supports releasing negative and limiting beliefs whilst cultivating more self-inquiry, self-reflection, trust and self-compassion. Therefore, your life becomes informed with a quality of knowing that comes from deep within ( your inner teacher) and empowers you.

Resistance comes in many forms, distracting us from moving forward such as procrastinating. Self-inquiry during counselling gives an opportunity to ask, how do I behave when I feel uncomfortable, what do I engage in to avoid pain and am I ready to change. Having regular time to complete counselling supports against any resistance to let go and evolve your mind with clarity. Our Mindful Counsellor promotes self-care and self-compassion enabling us to be more compassionate to others.

Before your first (50 minutes) consultation, please browse my Frequently Asked Questions section on www.ourmindfulcounsellor.com 

Our Mindful Counsellor will also email an Assessment Form to be completed and returned before your first session. This will enable us more time to talk about why you are wanting to come to counselling, your goals and expectations from therapy.

This session is a busy practical time for understanding and completing the contract while discussing any questions you may have and sharing your concerns. At Our Mindful Counsellor there is an appreciation of some anxiety towards coming to counselling for the first time and/or meeting a therapist. We will briefly talk through your difficulties and your goals from therapy. The Mindful Counsellor will be open and honest with you and in some cases your needs may be better addressed by another provider. The Mindful Counsellor will direct you to where you can locate a more appropriate service.

The Mindful Counsellor will not encourage you to continue with therapy if you are not benefitting from the sessions or if are unable to move you towards your goals.