We Counsel
Counselling & Psychotherapy in Tavistock and Plymouth, Devon

What is Counselling?

We all have times in our lives when life gets on top of us. We may have stress at work, have conflicts in our relationships, feel depressed or anxious or feel lacking in confidence or self-esteem. Often friends and family can offer support, but sometimes this is not enough. Sometimes we need professional support. What can be valuable in counselling is the opportunity to express yourself to someone who is separate from the rest of your life, who won't be overwhelmed or shocked by what you say, and won't tell you what to do.

Counselling can offer an opportunity to talk about your feelings in a secure and private place, with someone who is trained to listen and reflect, leading to greater self-knowledge and enabling you to be aware of new choices and ways to resolve problems as well as improve your relationships with others.

Would you like to come to counselling?

Are you feeling angry, scared, sad, depressed, anxious, stressed or lonely?

Are you grieving, lacking confidence, having difficulty sleeping or worried about sex or personal experience of abuse?

Have you problems with relationships, family, work or school?

How does counselling help?

By ensuring that you, our client, remain at the centre of everything we do and every way we help

By encouraging you to explore your choices of how you deal with troublesome situations

By respecting your needs and treating you with integrity at all times

By not juding or criticising you, but rather by seeking your view of the world

By aiming to build a relationship of love and trust

What is Pyschotherapy?

Pyschotherapy is a set of techniques used to help a person with emotional problems to understand what makes them feel positive or anxious and accept their strengths and weaknesses. Identifying feelings and ways of thinking helps a person to cope with situations they find difficult. Pyschotherapy is often used to deal with psychological problems that have built up over a number of years.

Both psychotherapy and counselling involve talking to someone who is trained to listen and there is no definitive distinction between counselling and psychotherapy. However, in general counselling is a talking therapy which allows individuals to deal with specific life issues, whereas psychotherapy is used to deal with deeper issues, most commonly with those whose past experiences are still causing them distress. It may be helpful to think of counselling and psychotherapy as being at either end of a scale, at one end would be counselling dealing with a specific problem and at the other end intense psychotherapy to deal with deep rooted problems.


"It isn't the technique, it isn't the therapist, it isn't the level of training, it isn't the new wonder drug, it isn't the diagnosis. It is our clients' own inborn capacities for self-healing, and it is the meeting - the relationship in which two or more sovereign and sacred 'I's' meet as a 'we' to engage with significant question of existence."

O'Hara (1995)