LOCATION: Wilbury Road and online
AVAILABILITY: Thursday afternoons
PRICE: £50 per session
SPECIALISMS:
Anxiety and Depression
Grief & Loss
Shame
Self esteem and self belief issues
Attachment difficulties
Addiction
LGBTQ issues
health related problems
Life transitions, retirement, ageing

Training

Nigel holds a Diploma in Humanistic Integrative Counselling from Wealden College of Counselling & Psychotherapy, Crowborough, UK. He has worked as a nurse in the NHS for the last 22 years and has a BSc degree in Palliative Care Nursing from Kings College London and a H Dip in Adult Nursing from Middlesex University, London. He is also on the counselling team at MindOut in Brighton and has volunteered as a counsellor at the Sussex Cancer Centre, Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

Experience

Nigel is a Humanistic Integrative Counsellor with a wealth of life experience to bring to the therapeutic relationship. Nigel's approach is rooted in person centred values and a blend of person centred, gestalt and transactional analysis techniques. He is particularly drawn to Gestalt therapy the emphasis is on the importance of the body, feelings and the present moment.

When people seek Nigel's help they often feel anxious or scared. They may feel lonely and that they have no one to talk to. Very often we live inside boxes of our own , or society's making. This can lead to people feeling trapped or unheard. People might feel overwhelmed and sometimes feel desperate. Counselling with Nigel makes people feel held. Nigel helps people find a route to where they want to be in life, by helping them look at the difference between where they are now and where they want to be and giving them a helping hand to navigate the journey between the tow points.

Providing the space and safety you need to explore, heal and grow.

When people leave Nigel, they feel held and supported. They have taken steps toward the life they want and can look back and see how far they have come. They now have light in their life, where before there was darkness.

Nigel delivers support, empathy, deep listening, a safe space, time to take a breath and reflect, encouragement, kindness and gentleness.

As a result of working with Nigel, clients feel supported, held, heard, seen, understood, relieved, hopeful, like a weight has been lifted.

Nigel offers a choice of short term counselling (usually 6 - 18 sessions) to look at a specific issue or longer term therapy in which we will explore underlying patterns of behaviour and emotional difficulties in more depth.

"From where you are now, to where you want to go, I support you"

Working with anxiety

Anxiety is a response to life circumstances that seem unmanageable or overwhelming. One type of response is to withdraw, isolate or shut down (depressive response). The second response is to over mobilise, worry or agitate (anxious response). Both usually involve negative beliefs or attitudes and a loss of connection or control. Several research studies (Roubal , 2007) have shown that Gestalt therapy is an effective treatment for such conditions experimenting with new strategies and behaviour, helping clients to readjust and make changes in their life situation using new insights and understanding.

Sometimes there's a trigger for depression. Life-changing events, such as bereavement, losing your job or giving birth, can bring it on. Treatment for depression can involve a combination of lifestyle changes, talking therapies and medicine. Nigel can work out a strategy together with you, that will be based on whether you have mild, moderate or severe depression. Many people with depression benefit by making lifestyle changes, such as getting more exercise, cutting down on alcohol, giving up smoking and eating healthily. Using Gestalt therapy Nigel does not encourage clients to stop doing a behaviour, but rather to do a new behaviour more often, doing it playfully and often, this way clients often become more balanced in their awareness.

Grief

Grief is a neglected and misunderstood emotion and is the normal and natural reaction to loss of any kind. Grief is defined as the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behaviour. Incomplete grief exists within most of us. Loss takes many forms and isn't always connected to death and bereavement, it can also include coming out, divorce, job loss, loss of trust, loss of relationships, loss of friendships, loss of childhood, loss of finances, pet loss, moving to another country and many other examples.

The phenomenological and experiential focus of Nigel's approach, developed over many years of working as a palliative care nurse and the deeply empathic counselling relationship it promotes, helps Nigel to match the needs of bereaved clients and allows for a flexible response to their reactions.

Shame

Everyone has it.
No-one wants to talk about it.
But the less we talk about it,
the more we have of it.
- Brene Brown

Shame tells you it's just you. That you are irrevocably defective. But what is shame? what does it mean?

Where does it come from? why does it exist? How does it go?....Nigel can help you find your answers to these questions.

Nigel is not an expert on shame, who has it altogether. His qualification is that he is willing to be vulnerable. Nigel is motivated to help people whose lives have been ravaged by shame like he has. Nigel wants you to know that you are not fundamentally flawed, defective or unworthy of love and belonging. It is your birthright to be accepted just as you are. To shift shame Nigel says we have to change our state before we change our story. Shame affects us deeply, at a neurological level. We get stuck because the purpose of shame is to be a brake on behaviours that would otherwise threaten our survival. It's hard to live life when you have got a handbrake on.

Using a steady compassionate presence and empathy Nigel can help shift this state. Nigel's own shame manifested largely as a result of developmental trauma and pain of growing up gay in a straight man's world. Nigel's shame has taken him to some very low points in his life, finding it very difficult at times to be himself. Nigel is a survivor who is passionate about helping clients to feel purposeful in their lives knowing that they are not defective and flawed, and that they are enough.

Other information

Nigel is an LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Queer) affirmative integrative counsellor, who provides an environment that is heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender positive.

Nigel’s articles in expertise and resources