How We Help
Benefits of Counselling
Counselling is an opportunity to work with someone you can trust in a safe, supportive space. Together, you and your counsellor explore how you reached your present situation, what it means for you, how you might view things differently, and what changes you may want to make in how you respond to challenges. Through counselling, you may develop new coping skills, gain fresh perspectives, change unhelpful patterns, and begin to feel better in yourself.
We provide a safe, supportive, and non-judgmental space where you can explore challenges, gain new perspectives, and manage difficult times in your lives.
Coping
To find different or new ways of coping with situations, or other people, in a safe, non-judgemental environment.
Understanding
To better understand your thoughts, feeling, and behaviours, and how they've developed over time, while also improving insight into others to support healthier reactions and relationships.
Support
To gain support managing harmful emotions, behaviours or situations, and to help you make decisions, resolve conflict, and built confidence to create positive change.
Direction
To help you identify what you want, what's getting in the way, and what is holding you back, so you can reconnect with yourself and find a clearer sense of purpose and direction.
Medication
To sort things out while taking medication or as an alternative to it. Medication can help manage symptoms; while therapy provides space to process emotions and understand their root causes. They can work together.
Stability
To provide a stable environment with a consistent routine. At Marches Counselling, you are not limited to how many sessions you have. We offer both short and long-term therapy.
Counselling Can Lift the Clouds
Counselling provides a safe place to talk and work on many issues, such as:
- Abuse
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Bereavement
- Compulsions
- Confidence
- Depression
- Fear
- Food
- Phobias
- Relationships
- Self-esteem
- Self-harm
- Trauma
Counselling/Therapy Approaches
Our counsellors utilise a range of therapeutic approaches, which we encourage you to read about by clicking through the drop-down list below. Please note this list is not exhaustive. Counsellors may use other approaches when/if appropriate.
Our staff have developed their skills in a broad range of settings, including the NHS and the voluntary sector. Whilst we are not a service specialising in one particular area, we have extensive experience in professional training in helping people with a wide range of problems.
A form of psychotherapy that facilitates personal discovery, healing and emotional health by combining art making and therapeutic dialogue. The “art” in art therapy is seen as a vehicle of expression. It doesn’t require for you to be an artist or consider yourself good at art. What it offers is an way of exploring your inner experience & expressing yourself. In addition to a depth understanding of the art process art psychotherapists have skills and experience similar to other therapeutic modalities such as counselling and verbal psychotherapy. Read more about art therapy from Art therapy – The British Association Of Art Therapists
Usually short term collaborative work which helps a person to develop new skills and coping mechanisms. The person learns how to recognise and understand how difficult thoughts and behaviours arise. They can then practise the techniques to manage their feelings and responses more successfully.
Non-directive, focusing on the client’s own values, where the client is regarded as the expert on himself. The client’s self-awareness and sense of self-worth is developed through the relationship with the counsellor. The best way out of difficulties will be one unique to the individual. The work is generally ‘Person Centred’ and will often focus on the whole of the individual’s experiences, thoughts, feelings and actions in the present. It is a route to self-development and growth.
Exploring patterns in a person’s life and how they are repeating themselves in the present. It examines the emotions which may be keeping us stuck and explores how we might change their influence. It focuses upon the relationships we have developed with ourselves and others, facilitating new understandings which give us more choice in how we move forward.
A humanistic and holistic therapy. One of its chief distinctions from more traditional Freudian analytical therapy is that it holds we have a “higher” as well as a “lower” unconscious, and that body, mind and feelings are closely connected. Through exploration of all these elements, sometimes through the use of imagery and visualisation, it is possible to understand the patterns that we find ourselves repeating and to move towards uncovering our true potential.
Helps people who are unhappy in their relationship with one another find a way through to better communication. It is not limited to people who are married, but can help in any close relationship. It is about finding common ground and respecting individual difference, enabling better choices to be made and helping people feel more comfortable about their way forward, whatever that might be.
MBCT has been used successfully with people experiencing depression and a range of emotionally stressful situations. It helps us to relate differently to our negative thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness encourages us to develop our willingness to experience life, and our capacity to engage with things that are difficult. It can give us the courage to allow distressing moods, emotions, thoughts and sensations to come and go, without using up our energy to battle against them.
Exploring difficult situations in our lives, with others who share some similar experiences. It can initially be very challenging to be in the group situation as we may already be struggling with feelings of alienation from others or the opposite, feeling too dependent. However, as it is often our experience of the family or social group which has created these difficulties, it is in a group that we may best find a new way of being with others.
Is a highly positive and practical integrative therapeutic approach. Broadly, Gesalt practioners help people to focus on their immediate thoughts, feelings and behaviour and to better understand the way they relate to others. This increased awareness can help people to find a new perspective, see the bigger picture and start to effect changes.
Mode of Counselling/Therapy
One to One Counselling
This includes working with your counsellor or psychotherapist on coping techniques, as well as exploring present or past patterns in your life and relationships. The aim is to help you understand and manage where you are now, so your relationship with the future can be different.
Group Therapy
This is when a group of people who share some common difficulties come together with each other and a counsellor to consider where they are in their lives and think about ways forward: sometimes using specific techniques like mindfulness, or sometimes in a more open way.
Remote Therapy
Remote or online therapy includes counselling appointments over the phone or using audio-visual platforms such as Zoom. This option is available for those who prefer it, or in situations where illness or transport create difficulties with meeting in person.
Couples Counselling
This allows two people to work together with a counsellor on their communication. It can help you understand one another better, change patterns in how you relate and find more satisfaction in being together. This is not always about keeping the old relationship, but about finding a positive way to live differently.
Frequently Asked Questions
To get started, you can make a new request for counselling by completing our online form. Alternatively, you can contact us via phone or email, or click the “Contact Us” button, where our helpful admin team will guide you through the process of getting started. After you complete your new request for counselling, we will get in touch to arrange an initial assessment.
This initial assessment enables a deeper consideration of your situation, where we discuss possible ways forward which will meet your needs. We then match you to an appropriate counsellor and therapeutic approach.
Yes. Please use our “New Request For Counselling Form,” or contact us via phone, email, or the “Contact Us” button on our website to get started.
We appreciate you will want to be seen as soon as possible, so we don’t have a waiting list. However, we will need to arrange an assessment and take steps to match you to an appropriate counsellor, who will then be in touch to schedule your sessions. Our wait times are considerably shorter than the regional and national standards.
Our counsellors are trained in a variety of therapeutic approaches and are not bound to one speciality. Counsellors will work with you to determine which therapeutic approach and mode of counselling is most appropriate for your specific situation.
All of our counsellors are fully accredited by the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) or relevant certifying body, or they are in the final process of receiving their certification and receiving thorough supervision and support through these steps. Marches Counselling Service as an organisation is also a BACP-Accredited service, and we provide supervision to all counsellors as is appropriate, along with a strong Counsellor Network for ongoing professional support and further educational opportunities.
Yes. Remote or online therapy is available for those who prefer it, or in situations where illness or transport create difficulty meeting in person.
We are located at 57 St. Owen’s Street, Hereford, UK, but we also have sessions available in Ross and Bromford.
No, you are not limited to a certain number of sessions. We offer both short and long-term therapy.
Marches Counselling Service was founded to make counselling and psychotherapy accessible to all. We are a not-for-profit charity and rely on session fees to provide our service. We fundraise to keep costs low and help subsidise those on low incomes. We ask those who can pay the full cost of counselling to do so, but we understand this isn’t always possible and will work with you to determine the appropriate contribution per session.
Do you have additional questions, or would you prefer to speak about your personal circumstances with our helpful team? Please do not hesitate to reach out.
