David Keenan

Please note, I work every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday between 08.00 - 17.00 only

I have many years experience of working in the counselling field having qualified in 1998. Over the years I have worked in many areas: private practice, the LGBTQI+ community, voluntary community based services, workplace counselling services and the NHS. This has given me experience of working with people from a diverse background and a variety of presenting issues. I offer an initial assessment that gives you an opportunity to help me to understand what brings you to counselling and for me, an opportunity to recognise the most appropriate way to work with you.  My fees range from £60-£80 per session, payable either by cash, card or bank transfer.  To learn more about me, please follow the link to visit my website.

I work in an integrative way, this means that we collaborate together to identify the most effective way of working to help you to find a way through your issues.  Some people feel they need space to explore their emotions or the way a particular situation is affecting them.  Others prefer a more structured way of working that may offer some techniques and interventions to manage emotions.  Whatever way you prefer, we can discuss this and together, look at what is going to be the most effective way for you.

This means that I have no one way of working with people, it will vary from person to person depending on your own unique need of therapy.

However way that we end up working together, there are some similarities with everybody.  I value you as an individual and recognise that you know yourself better than anybody else does.  This means that I will never offer you advise or tell you what I think you should do.  Instead we will work this out together.

Do not expect to receive any counselling at our first session.  It is important that you know what to expect from me, I like to use the first session as an opportunity for us to meet and to find out a little about each other in an effort to see if we feel we can work together.  I will ask you various questions about why you are looking for therapy at this time, what has brought you to therapy, how you hope it may help you and ultimately, what you want to gain from it.  Hopefully my listing here or my website will give you all the information you need about me, however, if you have any other questions, these can be asked at this first meeting also.  Once we both have all the information that we need, you will have an opportunity to choose whether you want to move forward into a formal counselling agreement.  If you do, we have a small amount of paperwork to go through, I will need some basic contact information from you, we will agree a formal counselling contract and agree a fee. Once all this is done we can then agree a date to start the actual counselling.

Please note that I work every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday between 08.00 - 17.00 only

I qualified as a casework supervisor in 2001, this has given me great experience of working with both trainee and qualified supervisees from a diverse background.  In addition, I have managed several counselling services in the voluntary sector and the NHS as well as providing group supervision and external supervision to workplace employees.  The BACP Ethical Framework guides me in my practice both as a therapist and supervisor and I use this as the basis of my supervision practise.  I also taught counselling in several local colleges and universities for many years .   My fee for supervision is £70 for a 1.5 hour session per month

I believe that supervision is more than just talking about your clients.  Obviously this is a vital and necessary element of supervision but it is not the only element.  Supervision is also a space for you, not therapy, but a place where you can explore any work or personal issues that may impact on your ability to 'be' with your clients in a safe and supportive way.  You will find me to be a supportive supervisor but who will challenge when I feel it appropriate.  I am very ethically driven and expect the same from my supervisees, if this is not you then you need to find another supervisor.  I am open and honest and appreciate the same from my supervisees.

I see the first session very much as an opportunity to find out more about each other.  For myself, I am interested in what brought you to work as a counsellor, where do you practice, how many clients do you see etc?  For you, this is an opportunity to get a sense of who I am and if I am the person you want as your supervisor.

You may decide in this session that you do want to work with me, if so we have a small amount of paperwork to go through, your contact details, where you practise, insurance provision etc.  We will also look at my supervision agreement and both sign to confirm we have entered into a formal supervision relationship.  If you want time to think about it, or have other supervisors to meet with before deciding, simply let me know once you have reached a decision.