I am Laura and people have always fascinated me. I am curious about how we become who we are, how our experiences and relationships shape us, and why each of us can experience the world in such different ways.
That curiosity is one of the things that drew me to counselling. I am interested in the whole person - not simply the difficulty that brings someone to therapy, but their story, their relationships, their values, their strengths, their identity, and the ways they have learned to navigate life.
Becoming a Humanistic Counsellor felt like a natural fit with the way I understand people. I believe deeply in our capacity for growth and change, while also recognising that there are times when we can feel stuck, overwhelmed, disconnected from ourselves, or unsure of how to move forward.
For me, counselling is not about positioning myself as the expert on somebody else’s life. I bring my training, experience and perspective to our work, but you bring something I could never have: the experience of being you.
I see therapy as something we create together, with curiosity, honesty and respect for your autonomy at its heart.
I hold a BSc (Hons) in Humanistic Counselling from Metanoia Institute and am a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP).
My training integrates three Humanistic approaches: Person-Centred Therapy, Gestalt Therapy and Transactional Analysis. Rather than choosing one model and applying it to everyone, I draw from each depending on you, what you bring to therapy and what emerges through our work together.
I have also completed professional training in online and telephone counselling.
Neurodivergence is an area of particular interest within my work. I have undertaken additional training and continuing professional development in this area and continue to deepen my understanding as the field develops. My perspective is informed by both professional learning and lived experience, bringing an added awareness of the many different ways people may think, feel, communicate, process and experience the world.
In my clinical work, I have supported adults through anxiety, loss, relationship difficulties, low self-esteem, burnout, questions around identity and significant periods of change.
I have also worked with neurodivergent clients, exploring experiences such as masking, feeling different, being misunderstood, and making sense of themselves through a new lens.
Some people come to therapy knowing exactly what they want to explore; others arrive with little more than a sense of feeling stuck or overwhelmed. Both are equally welcome.
At the heart of my work is the therapeutic relationship.
I work relationally. This means that therapy is something we create together rather than something that is done to you. I pay attention to what you bring into the room, but also to what happens between us.
Our relationship can sometimes give us valuable clues about how you experience other relationships. Familiar patterns may appear between us too, giving us an opportunity to notice them together in a relationship where there is space to be curious about what is happening.
I value openness and honesty within that relationship. There is room to tell me when something doesn’t make sense, when I’ve misunderstood you, when something I’ve said hasn’t landed well, or when something between us feels important.
The relationship doesn’t need to be perfect to be therapeutic. It needs to be genuine enough for us to explore what happens within it.
Person-Centred Therapy begins with a profound respect for your capacity to understand yourself.
Rather than assuming that I know what is best for you, I aim to offer a relationship characterised by empathy, acceptance and genuineness. This can create the conditions in which you are able to explore yourself more freely, hear your own thoughts and feelings more clearly, and gradually develop greater trust in yourself.
Your autonomy matters to me. I may offer observations, ask questions, notice patterns or invite you to consider something differently, but the decisions you make about your life remain yours.
Gestalt invites us to become curious about how you are experiencing something, not only why it may be happening.
It brings attention to the present moment - your thoughts and emotions, but also what you notice in your body, what happens when you speak about something, what you move towards or away from, and what might be difficult to put into words.
Sometimes talking is exactly what we need. Sometimes words are not enough.
If it feels useful to you, our work can include drawing, writing, poetry, imagery or other creative forms of expression. Gestalt allows us to experiment with different ways of exploring experience, particularly when something is difficult to access through conversation alone.
There is no expectation that you need to be artistic or creative. It is simply another possibility available to us.
Gestalt can also help us notice unfinished experiences, conflicting parts of ourselves and patterns that become clearer when we pay attention to what is happening here and now.
Transactional Analysis gives us another way of understanding how earlier experiences can influence the way we see ourselves, other people and relationships today.
As we grow up, we form beliefs and expectations about ourselves and the world around us. We also develop ways of relating and responding that may have made complete sense in the circumstances in which they developed.
Some of those patterns may continue long after the original circumstances have changed.
Together, we can become curious about recurring patterns, the roles you find yourself taking in relationships, the messages you have absorbed about who you are or who you should be, and the ways these may influence the choices available to you now.
The purpose isn’t to label these parts of you as wrong. Understanding where a pattern came from can create more awareness - and with greater awareness can come greater freedom to choose whether it is still how you want to live.
These three approaches are not separate boxes that I move between during a session. They inform the way I listen, the questions I ask, what I notice and what we might explore together.
At times we may look backwards and make sense of earlier experiences. At other times, what is happening in your life right now may need our attention. We might notice a recurring relationship pattern, stay with an emotion that has been difficult to express, explore something happening between us, use creativity when words feel limiting, or simply give something the time and space it has not had before.
You don’t need to arrive knowing which approach you need.
We begin with you.