My services

• Couple/relationship or personal counselling.  For details: see FAQ and Testimonials
  
• Consultative support for people with demanding jobs/roles - see Testimonials
  
• Training/workshops (contact me for dates)

About Elly

Maybe you are considering contacting me for counselling, coaching or training and you want to know more about me before you do.  Absolutely the right thing to do and I'll be very happy to talk with you when you call - without commitment. 

You may have landed here out of plain curiosity of course!

Couple counselling

My name is Elly, I am Dutch, though I have lived in the UK longer than I was in The Netherlands.

I initially trained with RELATE Marriage Guidance (the number one agency for couple counselling in the UK) as a couple counsellor.  I stayed with Relate for 11 years.  In addition to doing assessments, short- and long-term counselling, I also served on the executive committee and mentored new counsellors.

I have always hugely enjoyed couple counselling.  It requires significant additional skills - many counsellor/therapist who are trained to help individuals try their hands at couples counselling.  However, I think they do their clients a disservice.

I love it when a couple make a commitment to come for counselling together - between the three of us we can achieve results much faster than if they were to come on their own with relationship problems.

Yet, if only one partner arrives for relationship counselling, a well-trained and experienced couple counsellor can, in my opinion, help that person much better than a counsellor who has only been trained to do one-to-one work.

I have added to my couple counselling knowledge, skills and awareness over the years.  I now also help people deal with the stress, depression and trauma, which have a HUGE impact on a couple relationship.

Further training and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)

Many years ago I trained in NLP with Richard Bandler and Paul McKenna.  I have integrated NLP in everything that I do.  In fact some of the knowledge and skills were rekindled when I did the Human Givens training.

Further training and the 'Human Givens'

I stumbled on the human givens approach - it immediately made total sense.  In many ways it gave how I had been working anyway a structure.  I now have the HG postgraduate diploma.

In 2008 I added EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) to my toolbox, to give me further choices in helping people with all kinds of problems, but particularly with trauma.

Experience

I am very fortunate to have gained experience in a variety of settings over the years.  At present I work for Kent emergency services as a Welfare Adviser and Workplace Counsellor.  My role there includes leading and teaching the Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) programme.

I have been in private practice since 1993.  My practice includes work as an external counsellor for Dover Counselling Center.  The Center is a charitable organisation that grew out of the Herald Assistance Unit (HAU), a service set up by Kent County Council in 1987, following the capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry. It also includes work for an insurance helping people who have been traumatised in some way.

I also work as a school counsellor in a girls grammar school.  I absolutely love working with the girls and feel very privileged that they entrust me with so many of their very private concerns and challenges.  I often admire their fortitude, stickability, search for understanding and their willingness to make the necessary changes.  In addition, this work again informs my work as a couple counseling, as I really get to understand how children/young people perceive the difficulties of their parents' relationship/marriage.

Other

I had an opportunity to take part in a radio programme on VoiceAmerica about wedding preparation with the wonderful Gisele Guenard, Positive Change Leadership Consultant.  Click here for VisionarEase Inc.

Accreditation

I am a BACP Accredited Counsellor.

This website

I am fortunate to have found a fantastic programme to build my website.  I had many false starts with either dodgy companies selling useless programmes for my needs, or good companies with unsuitable programmes.

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