Smaranda Jim

I generally work from 9am to 7pm, Monday to Friday, however at the moment I only have availability between 9am and 4pm, some of the days. I do not work at the weekend.

To begin with, sessions are weekly, however over time many clients move to fortnightly sessions. 

I try to offer flexibility so as to accommodate the various commitments, shift work etc. that you may have.

I've known that I wanted to help people ever since I was 16. I studied Psychology, then later qualified as a counsellor almost 20 years ago. I've been on many other training courses since and some things have stayed the same all these years: I absolutely love connecting with people and helping them become the best version of themselves.

For a few years I have started supervising other counsellors too, which is a different but also very rewarding facet of my work.

Everyone that comes through the door is different, some people are Psychology graduates with a lot of knowledge, some are not used to talk about thoughts and feelings and might feel incredibly uncomfortable at the prospect. I adapt the way I work to suit the individual needs. Sometimes people are very emotional, some other times we would have a laugh together. 

I am interested in learning about you, what you value, what you fear, what drives you forward and what keeps you stuck. How you cope when things get hard and what you wish you could say if you didn't fear being judged. Those things become a knowledge base and enable me to help you as you need to be helped.

Counselling is a place to share heavy or confusing things, make sense of them and feel lighter for it. Sometimes I will teach communication skills, relationship strategies or coach you so you can reach your goals faster.

After the initial contact, we might have a chat via a video call or go straight to booking in the initial session. I would then send you an intake form to fill in, and some information about confidentiality and other relevant things.

During that initial session we would talk about what brought to counselling, your hopes and fears. It would be an opportunity for you to ask me questions as well.