The Neurodiversity Affirmative Therapist
emmawestoncounselling@proton.me
A Neurodiversity Affirmative Approach
What is Counselling?
Counselling offers a safe, confidential, non-judgmental and accepting space to think and talk about yourself, your experience, and your life. It can help you to make any changes that you would like to happen. It may also be able to offer insights and help you to work on patterns of behaviour in a safe and confidential space. Counselling can help people to discuss their feelings openly and honestly.
We all experience times when things aren't going the way we might like. We can find ourselves anywhere from a bit grey and unhappy to extremely dark and depressed, overwhelmed, stressed and spun out. We can get stuck in negative patterns of thinking which are difficult to break, become worried or anxious about the future, or unable to reconcile past decisions. A neutral space to think and feel can be extremely useful.
What to expect
I will ask what brings you to counselling in our exploratory appointment. It is helpful me to know what the presenting issue is and whether you have had therapy before. We can both ask questions in our first meeting to determine if we will be a good fit.
If we decide to proceed with booking some appointments, I will send you a working agreement/contract and part of this includes completing some forms which I will discuss with you in our first appointment/assessment.
Most therapy takes place in planned, regular sessions which last for around 50 minutes. The number of appointments would depend on your presenting issues and you decide how many appointments you need. I do regular reviews to see how the work is going.
During a session, we may go through specific exercises designed to help with your problem, or you might have more general discussions about how you're feeling.
You’ll get the best results from your therapy if you’re open and honest and say how you’re really feeling.
The therapeutic relationship is very important. If we are to work effectively together, you should feel safe and able to take risks by disclosing and discussing sensitive issues. That includes being able to give honest feedback on how you feel about your therapy and how we’re working together.
