How’s life going for you today? How resilient do you feel you are currently? How is your mental health? We all have mental health and in an ideal world we’d all be ‘well’ beings. However, like physical health, our mental health will fluctuate, and we can have temporary, long term, chronic or mild episodes. Importantly there can and is recovery from even the most debilitating of conditions. We all have mental health; let’s talk about it more and find ways to sustain a mentally healthy life.

We all feel anxious or stressed at some points in our lives, it’s a natural response in certain situations of threat or danger. The problem occurs when it becomes an unnatural response, where you feel like its effecting your life in a negative way, occurring too often, or when you’re not in a dangerous situation. The pressures of work, family and life may stop you from maintaining mental wellbeing and leave you feeling overwhelmed, lost direction and not knowing what way to turn to move forward. You may be finding elements of your life a struggle and don’t know where to turn or can no longer see the wood for the trees. Your emotions will drive the decisions you make today, and your success may depend upon your ability to understand and interpret them. This is when you may need additional support.

Coaching or Counselling?

Both counselling and coaching are reflective for the client and both work towards resolving issues and making changes for a better personal future’. However, they are definitely different in approach.

Counselling is reparative in nature and focused on understanding present or past issues or overcoming traumatic events. Counsellors can recognise if issues such as depression, adult ADHD, etc., or a cognitive or mental health condition are the cause of presenting concerns.

Coaching psychology has a developmental focus. While it may explore how the ‘there and then’ may be impacting on the ‘here and now’, the focus of coaching psychology is to deal with the ‘being self’, relationships, values, core identity and core needs, as well as the ‘doing self’, career, roles, tasks, skills.

As a coaching psychologist, I will not provide counselling or therapeutic services. However, I am an experienced and qualified mental wellbeing advisor and first aider. I know when someone is dealing with issues best handled by counsellors or psychotherapists rather than a coaching psychologist and I will advise this course of support.

Where I can help

What I can do is listen to the issues you are finding hard or worrying to discuss with family, friends, or in the workplace and advise on which area of professional support to take.

Coaching psychology can be the first step to removing the barriers and helping you back onto the path you wish follow. My background in occupational coaching in addition to my extensive experience of supporting mental wellbeing, enables me to bridge the space between coaching and counselling and support people moving out of counselling or therapy and ready to find their way forward using coaching.

I offer a safe and comfortable space in which to explore any element of your life that you wish to bring, in a professional but also non-judgemental, and caring manner. A space where you can focus on your hopes, plans, and ambitions for the future and share, with honestly, your disappointments, worries, uncertainty, without shame or judgment. I will work with you as you create your personal tools and strategies to create a plan to move forward in the way that is best for you, so that you can begin to feel stronger and look towards the future, rather than away from it.