Virginia Nicholls

Monday : 9.00 am to 8.00 pm

Tuesday : 9.00 am to 8.00 pm

Wednesday : 9.00 am to 6.30 pm

Thursday : 9.00 am to 8.00 pm

I have been a counsellor since 2010. I offer face-to-face and Zoom sessions. I offer a free 10 minutes phone call to discuss if I am the right counsellor for you

I specialise in anticipatory grief, bereavement, grief and loss, trauma reactions, and sex addiction and porn addiction.

Anticipatory grief - this is the period of time where your loved one has been given a life changing diagnosis to their health and you are waiting for them to die. The time span of this waiting can be extremely short or it can go on for years (especially with dementia and some cancers). Life changes for the person with the diagnosis, but also for their partner/spouse and family/friends as they often become the primary carer.

Bereavement, grief and loss - Loss does not have to be just mourning a loved one who has died. Loss can be redundancy, loss of health, a broken friendship, marriage breakdown, failure in exams, death of a pet etc

Trauma reactions - can be caused be a single event such as an accident, sexual assault, physical attack, or natural disaster or long term events such as childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, financial abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse or discriminatory abuse. People can store these trauma events in their mind and body.

Sex and Porn Addiction - is a behaviour or thoughts that you feel has been compulsive. It can feel like you are being controlled by the urges. You may have tried to stop many times and the behaviour just keeps coming back. The behaviour is unwanted and potentially damaging your relationship, or starting a relationship, damaging your finances and other parts of your life.

Partners with sex or porn addiction - It can feel like your world has ended when you find out your partner is addicted to looking at porn, or seeing a sex worker. There is a level of trust that has been broken and you may feel you will never recover from the shock.

Anticipatory Grief counselling

Counselling at this time of waiting, can allow you the space to express a whole range of emotions that you don't want to express at home. It can also be a place to work out practical problems that you may be facing as you live through the waiting period.

Bereavement and loss counselling

Counselling at a time of grief or loss, can help process what is going on for you. Grief or loss brings up a huge range of emotions that sometimes cannot be expressed with other family members, so counselling gives the opportunity to look at what you are feeling and thinking, as well as come up with a plan on how to take one day at a time.

Trauma counselling

I used EMDR and parts work (Internal Family Systems) counselling to help release stuck emotional and physical responses to trauma such as anger, panic attacks, phobias, flashbacks, withdrawing, not eating, or excessively drinking, or physical pain in the body.

For more information on EMDR, go to : www.emdrassociation.org.uk

Sex and porn addiction counselling

After an assessment to ascertain the level of severity of the addiction, we work together to understand your triggers and put together a relapse prevention plan.  We also work on finding out the root cause for the unwanted sexual behaviour.

Support for partners of sex and porn addiction

Counselling can offer a space to express your pain and confusion, as well as look at practical ways in rebuilding your relationship (if that is what you decide to do) or support you in the change of leaving the relationship behind. Discovery of porn or sex addiction in your partner is also traumatic, and so counselling can help in releasing trauma reactions, flashbacks etc that you may be experiencing.

General counselling

In the assessment, we work together to create a plan of what you want to achieve out of the counselling.  

The first/initial session is an opportunity for you to talk about your reasons for coming for counselling.  I will do a fair amount of listening while you explain why you want to have counselling.  I will then explain how I work in therapy and suggest a plan of action of what the sessions may look like.  We will work together in agreeing a plan.  Sometimes, this can take a few sessions to work out, as I gather more information about your life and how you see the world.

I will run through my contract which covers confidentiality and how I work.