Ellen Friend

Monday-Friday

I work with people that have experienced trauma so that they can feel safe in the present and look to the future with openness.

I help women with low-self esteem so that they can recognise their full potential and live a full life. Being a millennial woman myself, I can offer true understanding of what it means to be of this generation, now.

People who are feeling stuck work with me so that they can explore what being stuck means and move forwards with meaning.

My core training is integrative, which means that I draw from multiple theories and frameworks to offer a broad spectrum of support to the people I work with.

I always work with kindness and compassion; Carl Rogers says "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change", and I have been privileged enough to witness this change with many people, as well as in my own life.

I believe that inclusivity is essential to growth, and so I aim to provide a space for my clients that acknowledges gender, race, sexuality, ability, background, culture and religion and the different privileges or disadvantages that this affords. Within my practice, and using the privilege that I have, I commit to ongoing training and reading on these topics so that I can offer what I hope is a sense of safety for the people I work with that do not benefit from the same kinds of privileges that I do.

Covid-19 update: I am offering online or telephone sessions as well as risk-assessed face-to-face sessions

I don't use formal assessments in my counselling practice. In the first session we make some time to check through the boundaries of the work that I outline in my working agreement. I send this to you before our first session so that you have time to read and digest. It gives you information on things like confidentiality, how I keep and store notes, how to contact me between sessions, and a few other things.

The first time we meet, I will most probably ask you a little about what has brought you to counselling, what experience (if any) you have of counselling before; what you found helpful and what didn't work. 

As we begin, it's also important that we both understand what you are here for. Perhaps you want to grow or develop something? Maybe you need to let go or offload? You might have goals that you've already thought about and can verbalise. You might just have a sense that something is uncomfortable or doesn't feel right anymore. I'll welcome it all, and hold that in mind as we progress to make sure that you're getting what you need from our time together and we're staying on track.

I also invite you to ask me questions in the first session. You might want to know more about me, my training, my approach- even my thoughts and feelings about what you have talked about. Because I believe that our relationship is often the most important thing in our work, I want to hold space for these questions.