I'm currently out of office until Thursday 9th January, please note that I may be slower responding to new enquiries
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I'm currently out of office until Thursday 9th January, please note that I may be slower responding to new enquiries |
A brief introduction
I’m Hannah (she/her) a humanistic integrative counsellor and a registered member of the BACP providing therapy in-person from a peaceful office in Chapel Allerton, Leeds. I can offer in-person sessions on Thursday evenings.
Online sessions are also available and you can access these from anywhere in the UK on Thursdays in the daytime.
Hannah at the Old Fire Station’s counselling room in Leeds for GIPSIL’s Parent Counselling Service
Experience
I’ve worked in mental health for 6 years across Canada, Scotland and England. I initially worked in overdose and homelessness prevention and volunteered at community literacy programmes, Writers’ Exchange in Vancouver and Parkdale Project Read in Toronto. Since then, while in Edinburgh, I supported women fleeing domestic abuse and gender-based violence and young people experiencing homelessness. In 2022, I moved to Leeds to go back to university and continued working part-time with young people (aged 16 - 25) in an outreach role, providing wellbeing support for those transitioning from CAMHS to adult services. Since 2023, I’ve provided counselling as part of my training; volunteering with Evolving Minds providing online and phone therapy, and face to face sessions at a Parent Counselling service at The Old Fire Station with GIPSIL. I graduated from Leeds Beckett University in 2024 with distinction from the MA Integrative Counselling programme.
I started my private practice in September 2024.
My approach
As a counsellor who works with a humanistic and holistic approach, I take an interest in your wellbeing across all aspects of your life, and I believe all therapy begins with building a trusting relationship. Learning to trust again after painful experiences can itself be therapeutic and a major part of working together.
As an integrative counsellor, a few different modalities influence me – especially existential and narrative therapy - but I see them as different ways of expressing a similar view; that we seek to make meaning from our experiences. Sometimes these meanings or beliefs limit us and are influenced by major figures in our lives, family or wider society and culture. I think it’s important to acknowledge how this context influences us, to understand how we may have internalised certain messages and the impact this has on our sense of self.
These may be beliefs of self-blame, of failure or not belonging.
You may find yourself driven by a fear of being alone, by a fear of losing yourself in relationships or by an ambivalent mix of both. By becoming more aware of what drives our behaviour and relational patterns, we can develop greater compassion towards ourselves for feeling the way we do.
However, what about experiences that are absent of meaning? Trauma can prevent us from being able to put our experiences into words - or to trust that others will understand them. As someone who has benefitted from the use of metaphor and acknowledging the felt senses of the body to better express myself, I’m passionate about working creatively. So, if you express yourself through writing, imagery, music, dance, sport – whatever it is, I’ll be curious about how this may offer us a different way to bridge the silence it can be easy to get lost in.
Therapy has the ability to help us reconnect with others but also with ourselves. If you’re interested in working together, you can contact me here, I would love to hear from you.
