psychotherapy & counselling for individuals & couples
Avenue practice offers
confidential psychotherapy and counselling for individuals and couples.
Simone Lee and the practitioners on the avenue practice referral network are all
professionally registered which means they have achieved a high level of
training and achieved good competencies in their work. Being registered also
means that they are bound by their registering body's code of ethics and
practice.
individual
therapy (one-to-one work)
I see
each individual as unique and having his or her own personal value systems. I
believe people always express something of their personal philosophy in the way
they live their lives and this is evident not only in times of major decision
and crisis, but also in the ordinary choices and details of everyday living.
This means how you understand yourself, your relationships with others and the
world at large are absolute central to our work together.
As a
therapist, I consider you to be the expert about your life, and I act as an
assistant or co-explorer. I do not aim to find answers to “problems”, but I do
encourage you to deepen your understanding of your way of living and to reflect
on and consider the impact your values and meanings have in your life. In doing
this, we are likely to think about past, present and future perspectives of your
life, but do not prize any one of those above the other, but wait to see what
emerges as important for you in our dialogues. And together we examine how we
can open up your possibilities for living even when you are experiencing
difficulties. While, it is likely you will make changes in your life or shift
your attitudes, I do not set these as goals for our work.
You
can see that my way of working with you is not informed by elaborate theories of
the human mind or of human behaviour and you will therefore not be categorised
and fitted into a theoretical model.
My
therapeutic way of working is often experienced as having enduring benefit and
value; the best way to understand it is through experiencing it. I have a very
strong belief in the value of therapy.
You may be
interested to take the link to my
existential philosophy page which underpins my
working and living philosophy.
Face to face,
skype and online work
couple work, marriage and
relationship counselling
Every
couple's circumstances and needs are unique and so it follows that the aims of
the work can be very varied from couple to couple. I will collaborate with you
both to find a way of working that takes these factors into account. There is no
side-taking in this work, our common aim will be to promote greater mutual
understanding between you and an ability to acknowledge the other’s position:
this will increase opportunities for real dialogue.
In
this work, the relational aspect of your values is brought into focus. Your
relationship is co-constituted, created by both of you, and since it is
inevitable that people and their circumstances change, we shall look at what has
changed for you and what now matters to you, as a couple and as individuals.
Aspects of your relationship can be expressed in day-to-day activities and in
more intimate contexts. Focusing on what it is you seek from our work, we shall
try to understand how these values are expressed within your relationship and
explore the challenges that these present.
I
shall encourage you to face and own the difficulties that you are currently
experiencing in the relationship and to look at how you respond. We might do
this by various methods and this will depend on how we decide to work. Sometimes
we will do exercises and sometimes you might have tasks to think about outside
of our sessions - this very much depends on you both and what we think might
work best.
If the intimate side of your
relationship concerns one or other or both of you, I can discuss this with you
in a way which I hope will feel safe and supportive and cut through any
embarrassment or shame you might be feeling.
In
whichever way we choose to address the issues, we shall always attempt to
open out your dialogue to look at more creative and effective ways of managing
aspects of your relationship that challenge you most. The aim is for the
relationship, no matter what the situation, to be more vital and co-operative
and less stuck..
You
may be interested to take the link to my
existential philosophy page which underpins my
working and living philosophy.
Face to face,
skype and online work.
Links
more about Simone Lee
standard
practice
fees
contact
issues that
bring people to counselling
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