When you're on a journey, it's nice to know who you are travelling with.

(ABOUT ME)

I’m Trish; an Australian who has lived in the South East of England since 1999, moving to Horsham in 2005. I’ve been working as a counsellor since 2016.

In a previous life I worked in financial services marketing, but I found myself more passionate about helping colleagues who needed some emotional support, so retrained to do that professionally.

My therapy room is in Market Square, in the centre of Horsham (or we can meet online if you’d prefer). It is a small room where my clients tell me they feel safe and comfortable to talk about whatever is rattling for them.

I know that therapy can feel scary, but there is no need to be intimidated. We will sometimes laugh together, sometimes cry, but always you’ll feel supported.

(QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE)

I hold a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Person Centred Counselling from Middlesex University, a Diploma in Person Centred Counselling from the Metanoia Institute, a Certificate in Couples Counselling plus a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Psychology  from Macquarie University Australia, which I earned last century.

I am an accredited member of the BACP (registration 386514) and adhere to their ethical framework, as well as my own. This includes keeping my skills fresh through a programme of continuing professional development and courses. I am also registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, which means I process your data safely. I hold professional liability insurance and a valid, enhanced DBS certificate.

In addition to my Private Practice experience, I have worked for The Woman’s Trust, a London based charity supporting survivors of domestic abuse, the Metanoia Counselling and Psychotherapy Service, and the Horsham & Crawley Counselling Service. All of this has covered a range of issues where clients needed a place to put down. t they were carryin


This work has covered a range of issues where clients needed a place to put down what they were carrying.

(THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRISH)

I remember my first counselling session. I felt overwhelmed, I had no idea what was expected of me or how to behave. Here’s a little of my philosophy and how I work to help make your first session more comfortable.

You’ll be met with warmth and a curious interest in what has brought you to therapy. I genuinely believe most people are doing the best they can with what they've got, even when what they've got isn't much. It's a harder view to hold some days than others, the news doesn't exactly make the case for humanity. But sit with someone one-to-one, hear their actual circumstances, and it nearly always holds up. Stuck isn't the same as broken. It just means you're doing the best you can with the load you're carrying right now. And that’s where I come in.

You’ll find therapy with me a conversation. We live in a world of solutions. Sometimes people come to therapy expecting a roadmap to follow, to be told how they have to be. That’s not what therapy with me is about. You’ll find a space where you are deeply heard, accepted and understood and that experience will lead to your own thoughts and ideas coming forward.

I create the space, you bring what’s rattling for you, and together, we’ll find your own inner resources to move forward in a way that is unique to you.

Anything you want to talk about is entirely welcome in the session. Nothing is too much. You might want to fine tune things that are good, focus on something that isn’t working for you, or talk about the things you’re too embarrassed to tell your friends. Some things might touch you deeply so that you feel like crying, others may make you laugh out loud. Both are okay and both are therapeutic.

How do I know this? I think when you first start studying to become a counsellor you think you’re going to get answers to give people. Experience – both as a counsellor and in my own life – has taught me that what matters, is what matters to you.

For a long time, before I started down this journey, I didn’t really know who I was, focusing instead on who I thought I needed to be. This left me feeling confused, burnt out, and unsure how to move forward. It took a career change and my own counselling to properly meet myself and, to my surprise, like myself. I learnt how to live a more authentic life and through that become happier.

Life moves fast, and counselling is one of the few spaces left that doesn't. The focus isn't on getting you through as quickly as possible; it is creating a space where you feel fully accepted, to help you slow down enough to actually hear yourself.

One of the oddities about working as a therapist is that my job is to help you not to need me. There are no fixed minimum number of sessions. We will come to an end, when you decide it’s time, and work together to tie up the threads of all we’ve covered so that you leave feeling the work is completed.

Who am I outside of the therapy room? I like to walk. I feel fortunate to have landed in a part of the world with so many walking paths, and I enjoy discovering them (sometimes getting lost along the way). I find being around trees very therapeutic and, if no one is watching, I do occasionally hug them. An avid reader as a teenager, I still love curling up with a good book, or getting pleasantly stuck on a jigsaw. I write too, sometimes just for me, sometimes for my blog.

(AS CARL ROGERS ONCE SAID)

*Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist's view of psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin. (p. 17).