Hello I’m Ruth, Corsham Counselling is my counselling practice operating out of a central location in Corsham, Wiltshire. Having studied for five years and volunteered as a counsellor for three, I launched Corsham Counselling in the summer of 2021. I hold a Diploma in Humanistic and Integrative Counselling and as a member of BACP – British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, I work in accordance with their guidance and ethical framework.

Integrative counselling looks at the whole person, your mental, physical and emotional needs and the impact of the world around you. The Humanistic viewpoint encourages people to think about their feelings and take responsibility for their thoughts and actions. The emphasis is on self-development and achieving your highest potential.

I have studied different theorists, tools and modes of working, so that I can tailor an individual approach for you, rather than try and fit you into my way of working.

In addition to my formal training, over the past three years I have been working as a volunteer counsellor with a local charity – Developing Health and Independence (DHI), where I support clients across a diverse range of backgrounds. At DHI we specialise in helping people who have a history of addiction and the support we offer promotes health and equally importantly, independence. We work with our clients to help them find the resources they have within, to make the changes they want. Although a dependency on alcohol or drugs is what has bought the clients to DHI specifically, the nature of the work I do encompasses a huge range of issues. I have experience of working with anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and stress, as well as bereavement, childhood trauma and addiction.

The experience I have enjoyed as a counsellor has strengthened my belief that people are truly incredible and the inbuilt resilience and hope we have, despite everything that’s thrown at us is amazing. It is there, if well hidden. It can just take some time to coax it out from the safety of our understandable resistance, defence and fear.

I have discovered that hope can push beyond the fear under the right conditions, and those conditions can be provided by the relationship with your Counsellor. The relationship is central to the process. Knowledge of theory, different models, techniques and tools have little influence without them being drawn upon by someone you trust. Not someone who tries to rescue you, who tries to step in and takeover and take on, but someone who hears you, without judgement, without labelling right or wrong, without trying to steer you away from sharing the parts of yourself which feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. The relationship alone can be transformational.

When you truly connect with your Counsellor, it can feel so relieving, to find someone who really hears you, who walks alongside and shares some of the burden. That connection becomes the anchor that enables you to feel safe when possibly at your most vulnerable.