About THE SERVICE
At Alloa Counselling you will feel safe and held as, together with your counsellor, you explore the challenges that you are facing.
They will always be part of your story. However, as we work together, the goal is that they become your history; no longer affecting the present or hindering your future. We believe in the progress counselling can bring and are passionate about helping clients heal and realise their aspirations.
Our Team
Our dedicated team of both experienced and trainee counsellors are trained in a range of counselling modalities and techniques including:
- Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM)
- Integrative counselling
- Person Centred
- Psychodynamic
In face-to-face and online sessions, we work responsively and collaboratively with our clients to help them achieve their goals for therapy.
Associate Counsellors
Our experienced Associate Counsellor offers online counselling sessions for adults and young people (aged 10-18).
Mairi Henderson
My name is Mairi, and I am a fully qualified integrative counsellor, registered with BACP. My work with Alloa Counselling is all on-line.
I have experience of working with clients in private, charitable, and school settings. My approach is integrative, with a strong person-centred basis, which means I will use different modalities of counselling to best fit your personal needs and goals.
As well as working with adults, I have advanced training in counselling children and young people.
Anxiety, depression, low mood, self-harming behaviours can have a hugely negative effect on all areas of a young person’s life, not to mention the potential effect on future opportunities. Children and young people often find it particularly hard to put their thoughts and feelings into words, and that is why working creatively with this age group is particularly helpful.
Other areas I have a particular interest in are chronic illness and anxiety.
My underpinning value is respect for every individual’s personal experience, and I am committed to meeting all my clients with openness, acceptance, and compassion whatever they may be going through. The therapeutic journey can be challenging and difficult at times, but the rewards can make it all worthwhile.
Trainee Counsellors
We choose our postgraduate trainee counsellors very carefully, selecting mature people from high profile, professional backgrounds who are studying on reputable courses.
You can be confident that if you are seen by a trainee counsellor, you will be working with someone who is sufficiently trained and experienced to help you.
Counselling Models
C.R.M. (Comprehensive Resource Model)
This model was developed by Lisa Schwarz, M.Ed. a licensed psychologist, consultant, and international educator working in private practice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
CRM is a trauma therapy model that employs brain-based physiological safety as the foundation for healing. This model is a resource based therapy which is very useful when processing trauma, as these resources enable the client to stay present as they remember without being flooded by negative emotions.
Bessel Van Der Kolk is a Boston based Dutch psychiatrist noted for his research around post-traumatic stress since the 1970s. In his book, “The Body Keeps The Score” he writes that a person cannot get better until “they feel what they feel and know what they know”.
Integrative Counselling
Integrative Counselling utilises techniques from a variety of modalities. Your counsellor will respond to your needs and circumstances, and use elements of different approaches to help you explore and cope with the challenges you are facing.
Counselling Model for Couples
I use an Integrative approach to couple counselling, utilising several different models and influences: from the work of Harville and Hendrix, Dr Sue Johnson Gottman and the wonderful Esther Perel.
Person-Centred Counselling
This approach is one of empathy and unconditional acceptance.
We will offer you a caring, supportive, non- judgemental space where you will feel heard, accepted, respected, and valued.
This therapy was developed by Carl Rogers who believed that we have a remarkable capacity for self -healing and personal growth. Central to Carl Rogers Theory is the notion of self-concept; the perceptions and beliefs we have about ourselves. As we are all different and no-one else knows how we perceive our life, the person-centred counselling approach believes that the client is the expert on themselves.
Transactional Analysis (T.A.)
Transactional Analysis is a model of counselling based in the belief that our personalities are comprised of three key elements:
· Parent – rooted in the past and influenced by parental figures, our environments and society.
· Adult – present, ‘here and now’ responses.
· Child – rooted in the past and influenced by our learned responses from childhood.
TA prioritises the relationship between client and therapist with TA counsellors responsively integrating a variety of techniques to help clients work through challenges they are facing.
The Psychodynamic Approach
The Psychodynamic approach to counselling helps you to discover how past events (especially those from childhood) have impacted your view and responses to present situations.
With this model, we explore the roles of unconscious defence mechanisms. enabling us to look behind the masks that we portray to the world. We go on a journey of discovery with regards to relationships with ourselves and others, past and present.
We can help with:
abuse
agoraphobia
anger
anxiety
bereavement and loss
childhood sexual abuse
children and young people (aged 10-18)
couple counselling
depression
eating disorders
health anxiety
infertility support
insomnia
OCD
panic attacks
PTSD
relationship
relational trauma
stress
speech anxiety
For more information please contact
