Hello, I’m Fiona. I’m a qualified counsellor and coach working in person at the Manchester Institute or online. I can support you to work through the difficulties in your personal and/or work life that stop you from moving forward by building a trusting relationship with you and providing you with a safe, supportive space for exploring whatever it is that’s going on for you. I can work with you to facilitate your thinking, enable you to explore your feelings and emotions and encourage you to have belief in yourself to come to the right decisions for you in your life.
My base training over a number of years, from an initial skills course through to a post-graduate diploma in Counselling & Psychotherapy at Manchester College and Salford University, is in person-centred counselling and the three core conditions of this approach – being empathic, non-judgemental and genuine, are the personal foundations of my practise. I love to learn and continuing to develop professionally is really important to me. Since qualifying, I have also trained as a coach and begun to explore a more integrative approach, as I find some people, especially with work issues, prefer a more solution-focused way of working.
I have come to counselling and coaching later in life after a long career in the arts and creative industries, but I have always found working with people on a one to one basis has been enjoyable and rewarding. I bring myself, and the belief I have gained through my own experiences of finding my way through life, to my work. And this, together with my training, gives me the confidence to believe that there can be a way through for life’s challenges for all of us with the right support and space to work things through.