Welcome to my website
Life presents us all with challenges from time to time. Seeking professional support at such times and finding a therapist who feels right for you can be daunting. Whatever brings you here – anxiety, bereavement, trauma, anything at all – you are very welcome. My aim with this website is to give you a sense of who I am and how I work. I hope this will help you in deciding if you’d like to get in touch and arrange a free initial consultation.
A BIT ABOUT ME
I’m Jillian and here are a few things you might like to know about me:
I have a Masters in Counselling and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy from the University of East Anglia. I’m an accredited member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy and have been in practice for over 12 years. I see clients in person in Norfolk and Northamptonshire, and I work online which means that my clients and supervisees come from far and wide.
I also have over 30 years of experience studying, practising, and teaching yoga internationally. I find that psychotherapy, spirituality, and self-awareness overlap and complement each other in many ways and I have trained widely in spiritual, yogic, and psychotherapeutic approaches.
I aim to offer you a safe and welcoming space where we can sit together in presence and bring our attention and tender curiosity to all aspects of your experiencing.
Counselling and Psychotherapy
My counselling is firmly grounded in my primary training in the Person-Centered approach and influenced by my ongoing practice of Focusing.
Person-Centered counselling is a humanistic therapy which holds that you have within you a vast resource for self-awareness, purposeful growth, and self-actualization. It means that you are at the centre of the therapy and that I attune deeply in order to know as best I can how you experience yourself, your relationships, and the world around you. It holds that what we all yearn for is to be truly seen, heard, and felt by another, and that when we experience this, we change and grow in a natural way.
I also work from a Focusing-Oriented approach. This type of psychotherapy has the person-centered approach as its basis. However, the invitation in Focusing is for you to slow down and pay closer attention to your inner bodily experience. Research tells us that the ability to attend inwardly and somatically is the most important element in effective therapy and can move you beyond what you already know about yourself into new insight and discovery.
I work with 18+ adults as well as couples.
What is Focusing?
Focusing is a gentle and effective bodily process of somatic enquiry for emotional integration, self-compassion, and trauma relief. I guide you into a place of awareness that tunes you into subtle messages of your body and your inner felt sense of knowing. We have generally been conditioned to rely so heavily on our mind and cognitive understanding to get us through life and resolve difficulties that we have become disconnected from the innate wisdom of the body.
Talking about or understanding our issues cognitively is helpful but can only take us so far. Often it leaves us circling repetitively in things we already know. Repetitive thinking and intense rationalising are strategies we use to avoid feeling our deeper wounds and difficult emotions, and so discovering new insights and finding real self-compassion requires something other than our rational thinking mind.
Focusing brings us gently back in touch with the innate wisdom of the body. It helps us listen deeply to our inner world and to relate to it with non-judgmental curiosity and compassion. We discover that our ‘I’ is bigger than all the wounds we carry within us, a peaceful space that enables us to relate to them tenderly and from a safe distance.
The beauty of Focusing is that once you have learnt it, you have a skill for life that you can use by yourself whenever you want.
SUPERVISION
Our work as therapists and counsellors can be personally demanding and isolated. The Supervision relationship may be one of the most important relationships we have and needs to feel supportive both professionally and personally. To help you find a Supervisor who feels right for you, I’m happy to offer a free initial chat online.
My intention as a Person-Centered Supervisor is to hold you, the therapist, at the centre of a welcoming space that aspires to be both nurturing and developmental. If you are someone who likes structure, we can us Robin Shohet’s 7-Eyed Model of Supervision. If Focusing is a practice that speaks to you, we can use specific exercises to facilitate a more felt exploration of your work. I believe in allowing ample fluidity and freedom in our supervisory space to explore whatever needs your attention.
I welcome Supervisees and Trainees from any modality and theoretical approach.
Fees
Sessions are offered weekly, preferably at the same time. Each session lasts for 60 minutes and includes time for payment or other business. I arrange sessions solely with the person seeking counselling and work mainly with adult individuals and couples.
A few concessionary places are available.
| COUNSELLING & PSYCHOTHERAPY | |
| Introductory Consultation | Free |
| Counselling/Psychotherapy session | £55 |
| SUPERVISION | |
| 60 minutes | £55 |
PAYMENT METHODS
BACS, Cash or Paypal
Contact
Get in touch by email
jillian@heartofstillness.co.uk
Please email me for an an initial free consultation via Zoom where we might discuss what you hope to get from counselling. Then you might feel ready to arrange an introductory counselling session with me. This should give you a clearer feel for how I work and whether you would like to continue with counselling. Email is the best way to contact me and I will reply within 2 working days. Currently most sessions are via Zoom but I can see a few people in person so let me know if that is what you prefer. I look forward to hearing from you.
Time and again, people transcend the paralyzing effects of psychological pain when they have sufficient contact with someone who can hear them empathically.
Marshall Rosenberg