Contacting me in Bath
YOU can reach me quickly by EMAIL or TEXT on my BlackBerry: suecook.therapy@btinternet.com
MY MOBILE number is 07860 701300
You are most likely to get a speedy response from any of these contacts, but
otherwise my LANDLINE number in BATH is: 01225 426632
ABOUT ME ....
I AM a British Association For Counselling and Psychotherapy Senior Accredited Counsellor/Psychotherapist and a BACP Senior Accredited Supervisor (Individuals and Groups) and work to BACP's Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy. I have been continuously Accredited with BACP since 1995.
I am also a United Kingdom Registered Independent Counsellor and until I resigned from the association in late 2007 was a Registered Member and Supervisor of the Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists in Primary Care. I am a qualified Practitioner in EMDR and a Registered Trauma Specialist.
I began my private practice in 1991 after many years of training and voluntary work with Relate, Cruse and a local Hospice bereavement service as both a counsellor and supervisor.
In addition to seeing private clients, I worked in an NHS hospital co-facilitating group therapy and for ten years as a counsellor in a GP surgery, following which I continued to supervise other Primary Care counsellors.
Areas of expertise
My special fields of expertise are trauma, abuse (sexual/emotional/physical) and self-harming behaviours, losses of all kinds, including bereavement, and relationship difficulties, including working with couples - both straight and gay.
Increasingly my work involves the supervision of other counsellors and psychologists, including Accredited counsellors/psychotherapists, other supervisors, trainees, and managers and counsellors in the NHS. (Click on Supervision for more details of this.)
I also feel - through training and life experience - I have something to offer those of you experiencing stress/burnout or bullying at work and in the home. I have an ongoing interest in personal growth: helping people to move on from "stuck situations" to make the choices which will improve their lives.
Relationship problems both straight and gay are a big part of my work, and I am experienced in the special stresses of stepfamilies and adoption.
EMDR
Since the 1980s I have undergone numerous trainings covering areas such as abuse and trauma, bereavement and loss, relationship counselling, sexuality, adolescence, stepfamilies and adoption, depression/anxiety, stress reduction, anger management, alcohol/drugs abuse, self esteem, assertiveness, co-counselling, group therapy.
In 2005 I qualified as an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) practitioner. (Click on EMDR if you would like to know more about this treatment which is now proving helpful in wider applications than its original use for trauma.)
Although I mainly see adults of both sexes from their early twenties, I have extensive experience with adolescents. During my previous career as a journalist, I set up a national telephone counselling line for adolescents which I operated for three years and was an Agony Aunt for teenagers for 12 years in a national daily paper. This work also involved writing and broadcasting some 60-plus self-help messages and leaflets for adolescents and taking part in the NSPCC National Inquiry into Child Abuse.
I also undertook an NHS three year pilot scheme counselling young people from 12-18 in GP surgeries. I have long supported the NSPCC's work and that of NAPAC (National Association for People Abused as Children).
How I work
I practise as an integrative counsellor/psychotherapist mainly from an humanistic perspective informed by psychodynamic understanding and the teachings of the Object Relations school.
In short and medium term work I often include cognitive-behavioural and gestalt elements in addition, where appropriate.
However, under-pinning everything will be the relationship we make together - whether you decide on short-term counselling or embark on the more intensive journey of medium to longer term psychotherapy.
