Let Me
Introduce Myself...
Please let me introduce myself and tell you a little bit about me and my counselling experience…
I’m Juliette. I love chocolate, I dislike the gym (but I still go as it keeps me healthy), I love nature and pottering around my garden. I love nature (free medicine and good for the soul!)
I live with my family and my fluffy cat (another free medicine, pets are great for your wellbeing!). I can be a bit of a sweary Mary (expressive, not offensive) and I love music. I love concerts and I love festivals. I love catching up with my friends and family. I love binge watching anything on Netflix.
In terms of my professional life, I have always worked with people and prior to becoming a counsellor, I worked as a HR professional for a large manufacturing company. It took me nearly 13 years to realise a unionised and controlled environment was not for me. Rules, policies, procedures and conformity was becoming my norm but it didn’t feel right.
I recognised my profession was no longer suiting me, a square peg in a round hole if you like, it was not giving me the purpose, meaning or work life balance I wanted so I decided to start a new chapter in working with people, but in a different way.
My journey into counselling
My life changed following a sudden loss of someone close to me. It made me question my life direction and my job, is this it? Is this what I want from life? I arranged some counselling to help me work out what I actually wanted.
Having a safe space to talk about my feelings and issues made it obvious I was not enjoying my job anymore. My loss put life into perspective. I recognised the once important things in life…or so I thought (the house, car, holidays, lifestyle etc) were materialistic goods with no importance, yet this is what I worked so hard for!
I recognised I had outgrown my HR role and wanted my profession to be meaningful and reflect me as a person, so I decided to become a counsellor. This was a profession I had always been interested in but dismissed it wondering, who would ever want to open up to me?
I left behind the world of business and started my counselling career. I left my job and became a student and progressed from an introductory basic evening course to completing a Bachelor of Arts in counselling. My training increased my self-awareness. I could see I spent so many years trying to fit to other people rules, I was denying myself. Now I live by my rules!
So here I am, 10 years into my counselling career and now I work for myself with hours that suit me, I answer to me, I live by a healthy work/life balance. I believe in myself (and my clients) and believe we can achieve anything if we have a strong desire for change!
My Counselling Qualifications
My starting point
I chose the person-centred approach to counselling as it matches my core values. This way of being accepts us as being imperfect people, life experiences (good and bad) make us human and we are all striving to live a more fulfilled life.
During my training, I counselled bereaved clients at a local hospice which introduced me to working with loss and bereavement.
In addition, I also worked with people affected by mental illness for a local division of a national charity.
I supported clients with a range of supporting issues to include stress, depression, bipolar disorder and PTSD.
All past and current clients have an age range of 18-85.
My Counselling Profession
Alongside my private practice, I created and managed a counselling service for adults impacted by cancer in my local community.
Awarded funding allows the charity to provide free support to families impacted by cancer locally. I continue to oversee the service.
I have over seven years’ experience of counselling clients whose lives have been devastated by cancer. Some clients I have worked with for weeks, some months and some on an off over years.
I have worked with clients through their fear, worry, anxiety and low moods and most commonly alongside the impacts of relationships with friends, family and even employers.
My Counselling Experience
Working both In-person and remotely, I have experience of counselling diverse clients covering Anxiety, Bereavement, Depression, Loss, Trauma, Cancer,
Self-esteem, Relationships, Redundancy, Stress and Work-related issues.
Whilst the scope of my counselling work has been working with the impacts of a loss of some kind, I am able to work with most life issues people struggle with.
In addition, I have worked as a counsellor through a popular platform using video counselling and instant messaging support. I worked with different clients across the UK with a range of diverse issues with majority having an age range of 18-30 and all receiving short term therapy.