How Counselling Can Help You
A skilled counsellor or psychotherapist will listen and help you understand how past experiences, worries about the future or lack of confidence may be affecting your life. Together you can reflect on how you respond to life events and explore the way you relate to yourself and others. Your counsellor will not tell you what to do or give advice, but will help you make your own choices. People come to ECS in order to address emotional, personal or relationship problems. These include:
- Lack of confidence
- Difficulties in sustaining relationships
- Bereavement & other losses
- Physical illness
- Difficulty in expressing feelings
- Loneliness
- Psycho-sexual problems
- Issues relating to abuse or unhappiness in childhood
- Depression/ Anxiety/ Panic attacks
- Stress at work
- Women's issues
- Anxiety
What is Counselling?
Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of our lives; we may not like or understand how we behave or react, but feel unable to change. Sometimes we may feel overwhelmed by life events, feel anxious or distressed, or struggle with difficult relationships.
Deciding to meet with a counsellor can be an important step in helping us to make changes and move forward in life. A psychodynamic counsellor or group therapist will provide a reflective space, where you can speak your mind and explore your difficulties.
The counselling relationship can help you to: become aware of patterns that have developed in your life reveal how past experience may still affect you and the way you relate to others have more choice in the way you live your life.
ECS has an Equal Opportunities Statement of Intent, and aims to be available to anyone, regardless of age, race, religion, nationality, physical disability or sexual orientation.
Types of counselling we offer
Individual Counselling
The individual meets with a counsellor for regular weekly sessions of fifty minutes.
Couple Counselling
Couples (married or living in partnership), or others who choose to be seen together meet with a counsellor for regular weekly sessions of fifty minutes.
Group Therapy
In group therapy up to 8 clients meet weekly. An alternative to individual counselling that suits many people. If during the initial interview both you and the assessment counsellor think this is a possible option, you will be invited to meet the group therapist for a further interview before making a commitment.
All our counsellor's are trained or are in training under close supervision. Many are BACP or WPF accredited, or working towards accreditation. They are all working within the BACP Ethical Framework.
Arranging to start
If you wish to apply for counselling, please call, email ecs@onetel.com or write to:
Enfield Counselling Service (ECS)
St Paul's Centre
102a Church Street
Enfield
Middlesex.
EN2 6AR
An administrator will send you an application form, which you will need to fill out and return, together with an assessment fee £45 for individual and group and £60 for couples.
When you return the form you will be offered an initial appointment (with your partner, if you are asking to be seen as a couple) with a counsellor for an assessment. This meeting lasts between I - 2 hours, and offers an opportunity for you and the assessment counsellor to see if counselling could be of use to you.
If it is agreed that counselling at ECS is appropriate, then you will be offered regular weekly sessions with a counsellor. This will not usually be with the person who saw you for your initial appointment.
Practicalities
After your assessment, should it be agreed to offer you counselling, you will be contacted by a counsellor with a vacancy. This may take some weeks, especially if you have only limited times available (especially in the evening).
When you meet with your ongoing counsellor they will discuss practical issues with you, and together you will make a verbal contract. This will include times and dates of sessions, negotiation of a fee and information you might need to know about being seen at ECS.
Data and Confidentiality
All information relating to clients is kept locked, and is anonymous. We maintain confidentiality within the service. Nothing is disclosed to third parties unless in very exceptional circumstances, as demanded by law or if there is serious concern for someone's life.
Payment for counselling ECS is a non-profit making, registered charity. We receive some grant aid, but mainly rely on the financial contributions of those who use our services.
In order for us to be able to continue to provide a service, we ask clients to agree as high a fee as they can manage. Once a regular counselling meeting has been agreed, clients are responsible for paying the negotiated fee for all sessions offered to them by their counsellor, including sessions missed by the client, until the contract ends.
Clients will need to negotiate the following with their counsellor, depending on their financial circumstances:
- Assessment Interview - £45
- Individual Counselling Session - £25 - £45
- Initial Couple Assessment Interview - £60 (£30 - £50 per session thereafter)
- Group Therapy Session - £25 - £45
Please note: If you are on Job Seeker’s Allowance or Income Support the assessment fee is halved.