Gareth Barnes

I am available 4-6 on Mondays, 8-5 on Tuesdays. 4-6 on Wednesday and 9-12 on Saturdays. I have spaces available for new at the moment.

I am a fully qualified and registered counsellor based in Horwich, Lancashire. I offer talking therapy to provide a space where you can work through common life problems like bereavement, feelings of anxiousness, low mood, loss, hopelessness or sometimes a feeling of being stuck and not knowing what to do next.

In most of our work together, the focus will be on you, but you of course need to know need to know a little bit about me.

After a career in law, events in my life caused me reassess where I was going in life, and what I really wanted from it. I had struggled with feeling and anxious and low on and off in my life, and like many people, especially men, I thought it would go away on its own.

After series of bereavements, I had counselling which helped me to come to terms with the bereavements, but also made me realise that the key to my long term contentment came from within me. As a result of my work with my counsellor, I no longer suffer from anxiety and depression. I decided to change direction and retrained as a counsellor in my mid 40s. and qualified after completing my Counselling Diploma at Runshaw College.

I trained with Cruse Bereavement Care and consider bereavement counselling to be one of my main areas of interest.

At the core of my counselling practice is a belief that through counselling, you can become the person you always wanted to be, and that taking responsibility for yourself is empowering and can increase resilience in the face of the ups and downs of life

What can you expect from me is a warm and safe space in which to talk about your thoughts and feelings, and come to conclusions about how you can best overcome your problems.  You are the expert on you, and the answers come from within you, that way the solutions will always be with you.

Our initial conversation will be free and via phone, in it you can tell me what you are looking for help with, and I can see if I can offer you the type of help you need, its a two way process.  If I can help you and you feel we would be a good fit, we can then move towards setting up out first session.

The first session can be daunting,  I too have been that person unsure of what will happen.  In our first meeting we will make an agreement about how we will work together, you have input into this as well as me.  I will then ask you to tell me about yourself and what your goals are for therapy.