Mags Beardow

Hi, I'm Mags. 

Coming to see a counsellor can feel like a big deal so I want to put you at ease. I'm a friendly and open person and I feel people find me easy to talk to. 

I re-trained as a counsellor after working in marketing in the creative industries and latterly in financial services (insurance and car breakdown recovery) and am therefore familiar with the nature and challenges of those particular industries.  I now work a great deal with people who work in the creative industries or the financial services sector and have worked with people dealing with work related stress & anxiety, workplace bullying, redundancy & restructures and low self esteem/confidence.  

My job isn't to diagnose you or tell you what to do but it is to make you feel comfortable enough to be able to open up and talk to me. The key point is that you're in control and you decide what you want to talk about. 

I also worked with both young people aged 14+ and adults that have come to see me as they are dealing with depression, low self esteem,  grief and loss, relationship concerns, bullying and identity issues amongst many other reasons.

I've counselled young people at a further education college in the past and have also counselled  survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence & rape in a specialist agency. Due to this I have gained a great deal of experience of working with trauma and the after effects of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. 

Regardless of why someone comes to see me I always treat them with dignity and respect. I would hope that working with me can help clients understand themselves better, help them make sense of whatever is concerning or worrying them and maybe, if necessary, plan any changes they wish to make in their lives. 

I am not able to take on any more trainee counsellors as supervisees at the current time. 

My counsellor training was firmly rooted in the Person-Centred approach however I would not describe myself as a purist as I have incorporated trauma informed ways of working into my practice having worked extensively with domestic and sexual violence (although the importance of Roger’s core conditions does continue to run through my work).  I currently work solely in private practice working with individual clients but also insurance providers and Employee Assistance Programmes.  So I am equally happy supervising both brief, focused client work and also longer term client work. 

 I utilise drawing, creating artwork and using objects or play within my client work, always offered respectfully and consensually to clients.  This approach is shared within my supervisory practice and I am happy to work creatively if this is something a supervisee would like.   

I adopt the same approach within my supervisory practice and am very much led by how my supervisees wish to present their work.  

Whilst I believe that Supervision can play an educative role, I am mindful that this needs to be balanced with the purposes of supervision as if this always become the focus then the opportunity for supervisees to learn and grow within their own practice is diminished.

My Certificate and Diploma in Supervision focused on using Page & Wosket’s Cyclical Model of Supervision as a framework and this supporting structure allows me to offer a restorative, nurturing space for supervisees where hopefully they feel held and supported, but equally appropriately challenged. In order to create this space, I feel that the building of a strong, open and non-judgemental supervisory relationship is key; and as with a therapeutic relationship the importance of offering the core conditions to my supervisees is the foundation of this relationship.  

For me what is discovered or ‘unpicked’ during supervision needs to be bridged back to client work. I feel otherwise supervision could become a disjointed, separate activity which for me is a missed opportunity to improve and enrich self-knowledge and client work. I am also very aware of how important it is for there to be a bridge between individual supervisory sessions so that clients do not experience a sudden change or transformation in their counsellor which as Page and Wosket comment could leave a client feeling a ‘discontinuity as a consequence of the supervision’. 

I am comfortable offering supervision face to face (at my counselling premises at Dean Clough, Halifax), online (by Zoom usually but happy to be flexible) or by telephone as my counselling practice involves working by all these methods.  

I offer a free 20 minute phone meeting for potential supervisees for us both to check whether we feel that we might be the right 'fit' as supervisor and supervisee.  We then have our first supervisory session at which we contract to work with each other and agree when our working agreement is reviewed.  

Depending on your needs I am happy to offer supervision in blocks of 1 hour, 1.5 hours or 2 hours if required.  I charge £50 per hour of supervision which is the rate I offer to both trainee and qualified supervisees.