What to expect from counselling.

Most people arrive at a first counselling session with no idea what is about to happen. There is no shortage of writing about what counselling is; there is much less about what the hour is actually like, what it costs, what happens if you cancel, and what a counsellor will not do. This is that, for my practice specifically.

What happens in a first session?

The free call comes first, and it is not a screening. It is fifteen minutes to work out whether you want to spend an hour a week with me. People use it to ask about the fee, about how I work, about whether I have worked with something like theirs before. Some people use it to say a version of the problem out loud for the first time, which is often the harder thing.

In the first full session I will ask what has brought you now, rather than what is wrong. The timing usually matters. Something has changed, or something has run out, and the shape of that is usually where the hour goes.

You will not be asked to complete a form, produce a history, or explain yourself in any particular order. If you want to start in the middle, start in the middle.

What is a counselling session actually like?

The imbalance surprises people. An ordinary conversation takes turns, and this one does not. That can feel uncomfortable for the first session or two, and then it usually becomes the point: an hour where nobody interrupts to relate it to themselves, offer a solution, or need you to be all right.

I will ask questions, reflect things back, and sometimes say what I notice. I will not tell you what to do. That is not evasiveness. Advice from somebody who has known you for six weeks is worth very little, and the answers that hold are the ones you arrive at yourself.

Sessions run weekly and at the same time because the regularity does real work. A slot you know is there changes what you are willing to open in it.

Where do sessions happen?

A counselling room is a quiet, private space and usually not much else. Two comfortable chairs, a clock where I can see it, tissues, water. There is nothing to look at on purpose, which people notice.

Online suits some people better rather than worse. Being in your own space removes one of the things that has to be managed, and for people who find a new room, the travel and a waiting area genuinely expensive, that matters. You need somewhere private and an hour nobody will interrupt.

Is counselling confidential?

There is one routine exception and you should know about it now, because it sounds worse than it is. Every ethical counsellor takes their work to a supervisor. I discuss the work rather than your identity, and my supervisor is held to the same confidentiality I am. A counsellor who told you they discussed their work with nobody would be describing a practice with no oversight.

The full list of limits is in the terms and conditions, and what happens to your notes is in the privacy policy. Both are on this site rather than available on request, because you should be able to read them before you speak to me.

What does it cost, and what if I cancel?

The cancellation rule is not about the money. A held slot is a slot nobody else can use, and a predictable boundary around time is part of what makes the work safe. If something genuinely unavoidable happens, say so and we will sort it out.

There is no package to buy and no minimum number of sessions. Some people come for six weeks about one thing. Some come for a year. Both are ordinary.

How long does counselling take?

What I would say is that the first two or three sessions are worth committing to as a block. The first one is not representative. It is mostly orientation, and judging the work by it is like judging a book by the acknowledgements.

What I do not do.

This is the part most pages leave out, and it is often the part that decides it.

I do not diagnose. I am a counsellor, not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, and if what you need is an assessment I will say so. I do not give advice on medication, hormones or whether to seek a particular test, because those are questions for your GP or a specialist and answering them would be working outside what I can properly do.

I do not work with couples or with groups, and I do not offer bereavement counselling. I do not treat neurodivergence as something to be corrected. And I will tell you if I think somebody else would serve you better, on the free call rather than after you have paid for six sessions.

What I do work with is counselling for anxiety, stress and burnout, counselling for trauma, and therapy with neurodivergent adults. If you are still weighing it up, what people bring to counselling is the shorter version of all of it.

How do I know if counselling is right for me?

There is a common worry that a difficulty is not serious enough to take up a counsellor's time. It is worth knowing that the people who worry about that are rarely the people who should. Nobody is triaged here against somebody else's worse week.

If you are unsure, the free call is fifteen minutes and commits you to nothing. You can use it to decide that counselling is not what you want, and that is a legitimate outcome of it.