Dianne Barton

I do not see clients on Mondays or weekends

 I have been practising in Ealing for the past 21 years. I also have 23 years' experience with young people aged 10-21,  having worked in schools and youth counselling services for 20 years.

The type of therapy I offer is known as Person-Centred,  and belongs to the humanistic school of therapy. Put simply, I am not an analyst with a couch, but bring my humanity to the work. My interest is in you, the whole person, not just the part of you which is feeling anxious, depressed or has trouble controlling your anger [to take three common presenting problems]. In essence, we work together as a team - I know a lot about psychotherapy and psychology but I believe you are the expert on you! Together we set about exploring your present feelings and often how your past impacts you now. You will get to understand more about the distress or problem that has led you to seek help, and very likely change old, less than helpful, patterns of reaction and behaviours ultimately leading to relief from some of those life-sapping feelings such as anxiety, depression, anger and so forth.

 I also welcome enquiries from those who find it hard to define what is pushing them to seek counselling - maybe a continuing sense of emptiness, or feeling that they can make more of their life. 

I work with many counselling and psychotherapy students for whom therapy is an integral part of the training, and am attempting to model best practice for them.

An important aspect of Person-Centred therapy is that I, as your therapist am my authentic self.

I do not present as an unreadable ‘blank screen’; you will see on my face, read in my body language, and hear in my words how your story is impacting me.

I will not be utilising or recommending techniques* (see note below) to ‘fix you’ (as in CBT for example). Instead, as you are encouraged to bring your own issues to the session, the therapy is led by you rather than being directed by me.  I will, however, be helping you to focus on relevant issues, feelings and beliefs and will support you actively to find ways of telling your story. I also really encourage and value open communication between us about the progress of our work together.

Altogether this collaborative approach contributes to your personal growth, gradually enabling you to discover your own abilities and self-direction and contributing to greater self-awareness and independence, so that you can cope with current and future problems.

*There are occasions when, if you are clearly seeking some tools to cling on to when you are feeling panicky, I can coach you in calming breathing and grounding techniques which we practise together.

I see this as an opportunity for mutual assessment. I will be listening carefully to assess whether I feel I can be of help. I will, of course, be doing more than listening - I will be checking my understanding, perhaps asking you to pause and elaborate on certain points. I will also ask you a few questions to both support you through the session and ensure I have the fullest sense of what's going on for you.

You will be able to get a sense of how I work and, most importantly, to gauge if I am someone with whom you would feel comfortable to talk about feelings, events, which are hard to speak of and which you may be sharing with another for the first time.

The work is a joint enterprise, so we both need to get a sense it could go well...BUT if after a while you, or sometimes I, feel it's not going as we'd hoped, you are of course free to bring the work to a close. This is rare but it's okay, and important, to acknowledge it can happen.

I currently have no spaces for supervisees.

I am a qualified counselling supervisor, having trained initially in 2003 with Robin Shohet and Joan Wilmot. My further training was with Psychology Matters in 2004, where I gained a certificate in Person Centred Supervision. I have practised for over 15 years and am on the Metanoia-approved list for the Person-Centred BA, MSc and Humanistic Therapy courses. I have supervised for charities, schools, youth counselling services. I have also supervised occupational therapists, head-teachers and careers advisors. I continue to supervise students from Year One of training to preparation of final dissertations for MSc. I am on the list of approved, trained examiners for the Metanoia Person-centred Diploma and BA courses.

Because I see a high proportion of students of counselling and psychotherapy, I do not offer a general student discount. I have a limited number of reduced places if your circumstances are very challenging so please do enquire if you feel that is you!