Amanda Burridge

My working days are Monday to Friday.

I offer early appointments from 6.00 am and evening appointments until 10.00 pm.

Appointments can be booked weekly or fortnightly.

BEREAVEMENT / ANTICIPATORY GRIEF / COMPLICATED GRIEF - Before qualifying as a counsellor, I was volunteering for Cruse Bereavement.  This is where I really learned how to keep any interactions to a human level when speaking to people about bereavement.  Having gone through bereavement without any support myself, I wanted to help make sure that didn't happen for others.  

LOSS, ILLNESS CANCER AND THERAPY - I will walk alongside you as you navigate the meaning of your diagnosis and illness.  I worked for the NHS in the cancer department.  Speaking to each cancer patient, they each had their own version of the impact it had on them - the shock, the grief and how if affects their loved ones.  I've learned not to make any assumptions about people in light of their diagnosis.  The safest and most respectable thing I could do for them is tend to them as a fellow human.

OUTDOOR AND NATURE THERAPY - Did you know you don't have to be in the same 'room' looking at each other one to one?  We can meet outdoors at a mutual venue, a place to encourage us being fully immersed in and around nature - it offers a nature connection and may enhance the therapeutic experience for you.

HOME VISITS - If travel or access is an issue, due to illness or disability, it is not a block to therapy.

Qualifications -

BA (Hons) Therapeutic Counselling and Psychotherapy 2022.

Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling 2019.

Level 3 Counselling Skills 2017.

There is no protection from being human and from living and all the experiences that are beyond our control.  The only thing that is important is being human.  Status, money and other material things aren't relevant when you're in the midst of loss, terminal illness or vulnerable.  If you are bereaved, people don't talk about these aspects of the person you've lost, they talk about their values and who they were, they remember the person.  When you are about to go through or are facing bereavement and loss, this is when you start to ask different questions.  You're not crazy for feeling disorientated and definitely not going mad for the thoughts that run through your mind.  Because everything looks different when you've had the floor pulled away from under you.  

Losing parents and a baby (as I have) is something that informs my work and just as I have done, there is a way to recover your well-being.

How I can help you? - This is my formula for our therapeutic relationship and successful counselling work:

I'm not a higher authority on who you are just because I have done the training.

I listen to what you bring to sessions with compassionate curiosity.

This also creates greater empathy, when I'm only a human, as are you.

I will find unique ways to work with you, we don't have to just talk, I might use ways to facilitate deeper exploration.

I understand that finding meaning is often an existential thing.

I use my personal experience of life, not just my qualifications.

Let's meet - human to human.

During our first meeting, we will discuss your needs, explore what help you are looking for and why you have taken the courageous steps towards therapy.  

We'll safely explore how you wish to work; are you happy talking or would you like to use visual prompts such as pebbles or drawing?  

Would you rather be in nature and able to breathe in fresh air and move rather than sit still?

We may or may not set a goal for your therapy.  

We will talk about how many sessions you may need.  

I will formally offer you a contract of the work which supports you in formalising the relationship.