Meet Helen
I can see your potential even when you're struggling to see it for yourself.I’m Helen. I’m a counsellor and IFS therapist working face to face in St Albans and online across the UK.
I don’t believe therapy should be about someone sitting opposite you, nodding wisely while you do all the work.
I’ll listen carefully, but I’ll also be curious. I’ll notice patterns, ask questions and sometimes gently challenge you. We might look at why you react so strongly to something that seems insignificant, why you keep ending up in the same situation despite knowing better, or why the part of you that holds everything together is finding it increasingly difficult to keep doing so.
My approach combines Gestalt therapy with Internal Family Systems (IFS) and an understanding of attachment. In practice, that means we’ll pay attention to what’s happening for you now, while also being curious about how your past experiences have shaped the ways you’ve learned to cope, protect yourself and relate to other people.
I have particular experience working with grief and loss, chronic illness and pain, anxiety, relationships and attachment, parenting, and significant changes in life. You don’t need to arrive knowing exactly what the problem is, though. Sometimes all you know is that something doesn’t feel right anymore.
For parents
Parenting a struggling teenager can leave you frightened, angry and wondering how every conversation turns into a battle. As a parent coach, I draw on my own experience of raising teenagers and years spent writing about teenage mental health. I also created the Teenage Kicks podcast, interviewing adults about what helped them through difficult experiences in adolescence.
I can help you make sense of what’s happening between you and your teenager, including your own reactions, so you can find ways of responding that don’t keep pulling you both into the same conflicts.
I have a Diploma in Gestalt therapy from The Albany Centre and am a trained Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist. I’m fully insured and a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), and work within its ethical framework.
She was empathetic in our discussions
After dealing with the loss of my parents in the space of a year of each other, I had counselling with Helen. She helped me acknowledge and cope with my grief in our sessions together. She was empathetic in our discussions and gave advice on how to manage my grief moving forward.
The first time I had therapy, I was hooked.
I have a child with type 1 diabetes, a life-altering medical condition that most people don’t understand.
My world turned upside down as I watched her life change almost beyond recognition. I went into overdrive trying to fix things for her, constantly exhausted and ignoring my own needs in favour of hers. I felt judged and misunderstood by people around me. I was angry with the world and full of guilt.
It took me two years to get my head round things, and by then I was in excruciating physical pain. I’d had fibromyalgia for 17 years, but my pain levels were now off my usual scale. I’d even resorted to a shoulder operation that didn’t fix things. And then I was referred to a counsellor and I started talking. And my therapist listened.
Shame dies when stories are told in safe spaces – Ann Voskamp
There is nothing more powerful than being seen and heard, except perhaps being believed and accepted. I cried with relief that day as I realised that my counsellor not only believed what I told her about how hard my life felt, but wanted to know more. She wasn’t scared of my anger, she named my shame for what it was, and she helped me find new ways of looking at myself, my daughter’s life, and my relationship with the world.
As my anxiety started to feel less intense, the pain became more manageable and I began to address other things in my life that were no longer serving me. Being able to talk to someone who was 100% there for me, who could hear the difficult stuff without trying to fix or judge me, changed something. I wanted to be able to offer that experience to other people, so I trained as a counsellor myself.
If any of this feels familiar, get in touch and let’s see if I can help.