I have recently been giving some thought to what I might consider my specialism. As a humanistic counsellor, I have found this a complex area to navigate. My training in existentialism and phenomenology has in a way made me reluctant to pick an area of special interest.

After all, what I value most about my work and what I often feel has the most benefit for a client is my ability to be present with them in their experience, whatever that experience may be. Closeness to, or personal experience of the issues a client brings can sometimes be a distraction rather than an advantage. So, how important is it to specialise?

My conversations with colleagues would suggest that specialising can bring about more interest from potential clients. In a search for a counsellor, some people want to understand in a nutshell what that counsellor is about. Perhaps for a parent struggling with their child’s neurodivergence, it makes the search easier when there are counsellors who clearly highlight their interest in this area. If I want to buy a camera, I am personally more likely to go to a specialist camera shop than a shop that sells lots of different items, including cameras. In counselling, having a specialism feels like an assurance that the client will be understood, even though it is a counsellor’s responsibility to help the client feel heard and understood, regardless of the content of the session.

As a practitioner of South-Asian descent and with extensive experience of working with women who have been through gender-based violence, it feels appropriate to highlight this information as part of my practice. I am uniquely positioned to offer a culturally-sensitive, trauma-informed service, and I am hoping that this offering speaks to clients who might find it difficult to locate a counsellor otherwise. I am also hopeful that this will not deter other clients for whom cultural sensitivity is not the key issue. In my shop, I sell cameras but I also sell things related to cameras like tripods and film. The issues I specialise in are human issues, which bring with them all kinds of other human struggles like anxiety, loneliness and relationship problems. Specialising is not exclusionary. It simply feels authentic to say out loud who I am and, in doing so, encourage clients to do the same.

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