Clare Biggar

I am available weekdays and evenings 

Creating a therapeutic space for human development changes both client & therapist, supervision is key to ensuring safe integration and development.

A space to reflect is essential for counsellors, psychotherapists and other mental health professionals to not only receive support for their work, but it is also key to working within an ethical framework and ensuring they practice safely.

I am a counsellor with 15 years’ experience and a qualified integrative supervisor. I work with trainees, counsellors, therapist and members of the wider therapeutic field.

‘‘Supervision is recommended for anyone providing therapeutically based services, working in roles that require regularly giving or receiving emotionally challenging communications, or engaging in relationally complex and challenging roles" – Introduction to Supervision, BACP website.

The supervision I provide will create a safe space that facilitates self-reflection and development. You can bring your whole self to our sessions where I will provide support that is nurturing, informative and challenging to enable real meaningful growth and assimilation. Together we will set out to develop yourself and the support you provide to clients, facilitating a deepening of awareness, understanding and an exploration of new skills.

With core training in Gestalt, psychodynamics and CBT (for my full training please see https://www.biggarpicturetherapy.com/training ), I provide both one to one and group supervision, working with trainees and experienced professionals from a wide variety of therapeutic models and backgrounds.

In addition to my therapeutic career, I have worked in the social justice sector for many years and thoroughly understand the connection between personal well-being and the broader systems we are a part of. I actively strive to improve my awareness and education around intersectional topics, including disability, racism and discrimination, developing an understanding of how it plays out in society and impacts us.

I feel it’s a duty for mental health professionals to thoroughly explore the part we may play in upholding structures that contribute to discrimination; whether consciously or not, whether inside or outside of the therapeutic room. I welcome open, honest and brave exploration of these topics in supervision to help expand awareness on the subject and identify how we may all work towards more inclusivity in the work we do.

I welcome people from all walks of life, all cultures, all belief systems, all the many genders and those from the LGBTQIA+ community.

During our first session, we will explore your needs and requirements for supervision including previous experience as well as practical details. We will co-create a way of working together and a rhythm that best suits you, ensuring we are a good fit to maximize the benefits of the space.

As someone who knows the cost of training to enter this field, I am happy to discuss concessions for trainees. 

I currently have availability; weekdays and evenings. 

Hi, I’m Clare Biggar, a BACP registered counsellor and supervisor with 15 years of experience helping people find their way, their joy and their freedom from painful past experiences.

Raising self-awareness is a crucial aspect of improving our well-being. I help with immediate strategies and tools to ground and anchor you and then, at your pace, we can journey through processing experiences to fully understand them, exploring the underlying, deeper issues impacting your well-being. By telling me your story in the safe impartial and non-judgemental space I will create for you, I can offer a new perspective on issues and events that have and continue to affect you. Finally, I will support you to learn skills and strategies to imbed your new way of being, enabling you to meet the world as your authentic self on your terms whilst managing its impact on you and breaking negative cycles, letting go of narratives that no longer serve you.

My aim for our therapy sessions is to help you do this by pulling from a wide range of training, skill sets, creativity and personal experience. Using various approaches tailored to your needs, I can meet you in a way that facilitates the most change with the goal of no longer being impacted negatively by the past.

I strongly believe in the power of humour as a tool to help us when things are dark; a well-placed laugh can shine a light into the deepest of glooms and give us hope when we need it most.

In addition to my therapeutic career, I worked in the social justice sector and thoroughly understand the connection between personal well-being and the broader systems we are a part of. Being neurodivergent, I understand that we all have unique ways of connecting and communicating with each other and the world. I actively strive to improve my awareness and education around intersectional topics, including disability and discrimination, developing my understanding of how it plays out in society and impacts us.

Counselling, psychotherapy and how I work.

There are a lot of similarities between psychotherapy and counselling in that a space is created for one person to help another understand themselves better and invoke positive change. This is generally done by gently unpacking and processing painful experiences, suggesting new perspectives on issues and learning new ways of managing how you meet the world on your terms. It is a positive, creative and rewarding process requiring the therapist to pull from various skills tailored to meet your needs. You could view counselling as, at times, a shorter intervention with a specific focus on an issue to address. At the same time, a psychotherapeutic approach often involves a deeper level of engagement and commitment with more exploration of difficult experiences and emotions. I work within both approaches.

Below are some areas we can work together on:

• Healing from emotional pain and trauma

• Overcoming negative life patterns that are holding you back and preventing growth

• Decreasing and managing stress, burnout, anxiety and depression

• Identify and release any inherited intergenerational negative emotional patterns

• Identify unhealthy coping patterns like addictive behaviours, self-harm and destructive aspects of self and learning new coping skills within the language of self-care

• Develop healthy boundaries for yourself, like learning to say no with compassion

• Personal growth and transformation

• Developing resilience and the capacity to be with uncomfortable feelings

• Understanding relationship dynamics and the part you play

• Exploring your emotions, understanding them and working with them rather than against them

• Connecting more deeply with your inner self, intuition and wisdom

• Exploring and developing aspects of emotional intelligence: awareness, self-regulation, empathy

• Finding meaning and purpose in your life

While we all hold the key to our own well-being, sometimes we need a guide to show us the way.

I appreciate how daunting reaching out for support can be, it takes a lot of bravery, and I will do all I can to make the process as comfortable as possible for you. To start your journey with me, I provide a free, no-commitment 15-20 minute telephone consultation to explore how working together might feel and identify the best approach and structure for you.

I welcome people from all walks of life, all cultures, all belief systems, all the many genders and those from the LGBTQIA+ community. I provide online or telephone sessions for both short-term and open-ended therapy.

I aim to reply to contact you within 48 hours. If I am unable to answer your call, please text or leave a brief voicemail with your name and preferred means of contact. To protect your privacy, I will only call you back if you explicitly request this in your message.