Born in the USA, I moved to the UK in 1989 whilst working with a major American marketing company. Prior to this move, I completed my original Hypnotism training in Los Angeles where I was awarded advanced Diplomas in Hypnotism and Hypnotherapy. In 1996 I left the corporate world and began training as a couple’s counsellor with Relate in Harlow, Essex. Having achieved full Relate qualifications in couple’s counselling, I then continued working for Relate with couples and individuals with relationship difficulties in both Bishops Stortford and Harlow until 2002, at which point I opened East Herts West Essex Counselling Services and began practicing privately . In addition to the Relate certificate in counselling, I also hold both a Certificate in Counselling and a Post Graduate diploma in counselling from the University of Hertfordshire. This represents an additional four years of UK University training on top of my many year’s training and experience with Relate, as well as my original Hypnotherapy qualifications and experience.

Early in 2006, I completed a further Post Graduate Diploma in working with survivors of childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse from the University of Middlesex. Working with individuals or couples in this area requires specialist training and understanding that is simply not covered in mainstream counselling and social work training. For more information on my work with survivors of childhood sexual abuse and trauma, click here.

I am a fully accredited member of the BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) as well as being a UKRCP (United Kingdom Register of Counsellors and Psychotherapists) Registered Independent Counsellor/Psychotherapist. This status is maintained via a rigorous process of Continuing Professional Development from courses and further training, the demonstration of regular and continuous work with clients (as opposed to part time practitioners who might work with no more than 4 or 5 clients over a calendar year), and the maintenance of full professional indemnity insurance.

Also, as is appropriate to a full time practitioner of both accredited and registered status, I am committed to the maintenance of high professional standards in both my work and the environment I create for my clients. In addition to the above, I am committed to working within the BACP ethical framework at all times.

In 2007, I attained a diploma at level 1 in British Sign Language (BSL). Training to become a Sign Language interpreter (Four levels of training) takes four and a half years of accredited training and testing. My desire to be able to work with as great a range of client needs and within different clinical settings as possible drives my continuing commitment to ongoing professional development. East Herts West Essex Counselling Services was founded in 2002 and is continuing to grow as my service repertoire increases to include an ever broadening range of training and services for both individuals, couples, supervision for counsellors and students, as well as the Health Care sector.

In December 2008, I completed an Advanced Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapeutic Methods (CBT) with the University of Warwick. I undertook this Post Graduate Diploma because of the ever greater awareness and presence of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy within the NHS and therapeutic world in general. While I have no intention in becoming a dedicated CBT practitioner, there are a number of very useful ideas and techniques that can be integrated into my practice and that I am happy to pass on to clients where appropriate. For more information on CBT, please see the section on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy elsewhere on this site. Utilising CBT in this manner will enable me to be of even more service to those I work with than ever before. My policy and attitude towards ongoing professional development is to always ensure that my training is current and at the highest level that it can be at any given time. To this end, I continue to read the appropriate psychological literature and am already looking for my next Post Graduate Diploma to obtain.

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Personal Client Experiences

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Nicola - Bishops Stortford

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Many people have preconceptions about counselling and what it entails - me included ! At the age of 28 I had never had any form of counselling, and always assumed it was basically another name for a place where people went when they couldn't cope anymore...you lay on a chaise longue while someone sits on the opposite side of the room with a clipboard listening to everything you have to say about your past and your childhood.

However, thankfully my actual experience was very very different to that, it has taught me so very much about myself and the time I spent visiting Johnathan is something I will always cherish. Counselling is something which I truly feel everybody should have the chance to experience at some point in their life.

When I first contacted Johnathan I felt as if my whole world was crumbling around me, my relationship was breaking down and a friendship which I held so very dear was also falling away from me. I couldn't stop crying and I felt that as much as I could talk to friends and family - it wasn't helping me to overcome this overwhelming feeling of not being able to cope and self-sooth. A very close friend of mine who had been for counselling a few years previous had suggested it might be worth me making an appointment to see if it would help. At the time I took the phone number and just put it in my handbag, thanking her perfusely but not really ever expecting to make the call. But then one morning I just felt so low, I took the big step and made the call. I made an appointment for the following week, and as the time grew closer I became more and more nervous about what to expect. How do I talk to this stranger about my most private thoughts and feelings? Would this person really be able to help me? Would it be very formal and clinical? However from the moment I walked into the room and met Johnathan I felt instantly at ease. He has such a caring, calm and relaxed manner about him, as time went by I'd often kick off my shoes and curl my feet up on the sofa as I chatted to him. He became a very dear friend and confident to me.

My experience of counselling was better than I could ever have imagined. To have someone as professional and intuitive as Johnathon listening to every worry, every upset, every little thing I had on my mind, and not judging me or telling me how I should or shouldn't be feeling was so liberating. He listened to me, and then helped me to understand why I may be feeling that way, and then we talked through how I could learn that its not always good to open up and put my total trust into everybody around me, how I need to learn to love myself and take time out just for me. I started keeping a daily journal on a recommendation from Johnathan, and at the time I didn't think it would help very much, but as time went on I found it so enlightening. When I read back through some of the early entries I wrote now, it really does make me realise how far I've come, and how much of an emotional roller-coaster Johnathan guided me through.

I spent over a year visiting Johnathan, and I have recommended him to so many of my friends and family. I really do think there is such a mystique about counselling and what it entails, and yet really and truly counselling is something that is so unique. Everyone's needs and experiences will be different depending on their individual situations. More than anything counselling has helped me to understand who I am, where I want to go, and who I want to be - and I am such a stronger more positive person thanks to the time and understanding Johnathan gave to me. 

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Laraine - Hertfordshire

My Husband Walked Out On Me

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My husband walked out one Saturday morning – literally – no row, no explanation, nothing! I wasn’t aware he had left me for nearly 12 hours and then the panic set in. What was I going to do, how was I going to cope on my own. I had been married for 20 years. I battled with the one question I had no answer for – Why did he leave? I couldn’t talk to my friends about this so after about 6 months I decided to seek outside help.

I met Johnathan early in November. I wasn’t sure I was going to go back after the first session… but I did. I knew Christmas was going to be a struggle – how would I deal with waking up on Christmas day on my own. We talked about everything, there were no hiding places, sometimes I thought he could see straight into my thoughts - he knew what I was going to say before I did. But he never pushed me, never made me talk about something until I was ready. When you are struggling to find the right words to express yourself, he has this uncanny knack of summing up what you want to say.

I learnt so much about myself through counselling. This is going to sound like a real cliché but I found the whole experience cleansing – I could talk about anything, say anything and he never judged me, but at the same time he helped me find some answers to the burning question of WHY? I still don’t know the real answer, but I have stopped beating myself up about it. It’s just not important anymore.

I discovered who I really was – another cliché – but the only way I can describe it. At work I was a confident outgoing business woman who knew her own mind. At home I played this role – the wife- and I didn’t realise I was doing it. Counselling helped me work out which was the real one and I am a much more content person now.

Without counselling I would have struggled to come to terms with what had happened and would only have seen it as a negative. Johnathan helped bring some perspective to the situation and made me appreciate my life and all the positive things that were happening to me. It gave me a renewed confidence in myself, even my friends said they could see a change in me.

I am now in a new relationship – it is much healthier – no more treading on egg shells. I spent 20 years trying to fulfil someone else’s expectations, now I am who I am.

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When I first went with my husband to seek counselling, we were in a very bad state. Yet I now feel that we are one of the lucky ones, and that because of our counselling have been able to sort through many things that we are happily working through – while at the same time re-discovering ourselves and our lives together.

What does counselling actually do? I would think most people perceive it as a kind of confessional. A place to admit some of your darkest fears and worries. Perhaps feel absolved in some way and then walk away. Or perhaps a time when you can be totally selfish and think only of yourself for that short time - confident in the knowledge that someone is listening and understanding you.

For me personally, the experience has been a mixed bag. I have found (very much to my surprise), that I found it difficult to talk about myself except in relation to those around me, and yet I had always wanted to! I found that when speaking with Johnathan, I was repeating many things I had already thought through, and yet when I did so it fixed things in my mind in some different way so  that I was able to distinguish between mild annoyances and real worries in a way I couldn’t so well on my own. I found it frustrating looking for an answer on my own and not finding one, and yet exhilarating when, after talking about something I did not necessarily know was bugging me so much, feeling refreshed upon leaving his premises.

It has been pointed out to me more than once that the cost of regular sessions can be very hard to carry. Yet for me, how can anyone doubt its value if it helps you rediscover 25 years of a loving partnership and at the same time teach you more about the values and hopes you once had, yet somewhere along the way lost sight of.

In my mind, counselling no longer has the stigma attached to it that it once had. People need it for a variety of reasons - as varied as the people themselves. There is definitely a sense of complete freedom to be able to speak to someone who is totally separated from your life, an outsider as it were, that you invite in to share with, and who then helps to lead you through the maze.


 

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J & M - Hertfordshire

When Malcolm my husband finally admitted that he’d been having a long standing affair with one of my good friends, I was devastated. But because of the manner in which he told me, and because we had had a previously wonderful marriage – I had no intention of summarily chucking him out and we spent a good few weeks talking, including a long planned holiday where we seemed to do nothing but walk and talk – and even make love.

However, it became obvious that Malcolm was absolutely eaten up with remorse, with guilt and all manner of feelings that he had buried for many years – including the fact that not only had his family disowned him – far too complicated to explain – but that he had lost two little boys through cot death and that his first marriage had broken up through that and other factors.

He definitely needed to talk to somebody, and because Johnathan’s office was literally at the top of our road, he chose Johnathan. Right from the moment he walked back home after the first session, it was clearly apparent he had chosen the right person - there was a new spring in his step and his whole demeanour had changed.

Malcolm saw Johnathan for several months and gradually became able to deal with his feelings and returned back to the wonderful husband I knew and loved.

I too had issues, and decided that I too needed to speak to Johnathan – I found it very difficult to put images of Malcolm and his “mistress” out of my mind and these would intrude quite regularly.

Johnathan assured me that because he had been speaking to Malcolm, and was now talking to me, the two wouldn’t merge – and they didn’t. But, there were several instances where, without breaking any confidences, Johnathan was able to console me simply because of his knowledge of what Malcolm had told him.

Johnathan has an unique way of looking at things – a way of putting your problems into perspective and of somehow providing magic counselling and he gave me a mantra “Malcolm wants what he has” - which to me has become a talisman.

We can recommend Johnathan whole heartedly – and far from being “ashamed” of seeking counselling – we are proud that we had enough sense to get help from a professional and not let pride, anger and guilt spoil our long lasting marriage.

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