Louise Allen
Member Status: Accredited Professional
Member No: NCS18-06683
Location: Faversham
I am an integrative counsellor. Through listening to you talk about what is troubling you, I work alongside you to understand how you are experiencing life right now. I provide a warm, accepting and open space for you to explore your thoughts and feelings, and move towards greater self-awareness and fulfillment. I offer both indoor and outdoor counselling, including walking/movement/being still outdoors therapy.
I work in a way where we focus on how you are experiencing life right here and now, making connections - where relevant - to experiences from your past. I support you to lead your counselling in the direction that feels right for you. I use existential ideas to explore themes of responsibility, choice, freedom and meaning in life, and we focus on tuning into feelings in your body to help process your experience. I may offer to bring in creative techniques to explore particular issues which can bring a new perspective on what you are experiencing.
I view the counselling process as an opportunity for you to become more aware of your thoughts, feelings and experiences which provides the opportunity to open up and grow – rather like an unfurling fern. My role in our counselling is similar to a fellow traveller. I will accompany you on your “journey”, working with you to create a space in which we can attempt to fully understand your experience and the things that are dissatisfying or holding you back from where you want to be. I bring my knowledge, experience, intuition and perspective into our work, and together we can find the “tools” that help you gain greater awareness and choice in how you live.
We exist in relationship with others, including other humans and the "other-than-human" world (plants, animals, landscapes, the seasons) and I believe exploration of these relationships as equally valuable in the therapeutic process. As humans, we have a tendency towards certainty and control for a sense of safety - therapy helps gently open up space for not knowing and being open to that which is not within our control, and the richness, growth and fulfillment this can bring.
