When I first came to Cathy, all I wanted was someone to talk to. I’d had years of therapy and given up on it as something that would never change the way I felt and thought. I had very little expectations of what I would gain, It was the very last bit of fight that I had left to fight back against mental illness. The more time I’ve spent with Cathy the more I think that our first appointment must have been ‘Challenge accepted – bring it on’ to her. Cathy has always been so patient with me, she’s never pushed me into exploring anything that I haven’t been ready for. As soon as there’s a hint of resistance she backs away. So not only has Cathy given me a voice, she’s shown me that my decisions, my feelings and fears are respected. We’ve been working together for 2 years and I have gained so much in that time. It took a long time for me to trust her, but Cathy never gave up on me. She showed me what it is like to be accepted as I am, to be respected and of value. As a result, I have managed to build relationships with other people, and to grow a life that I love. One of the ways Cathy and I would work in the beginning would be with play, and art. Her reassurance and encouragement mean I discovered art as a way of expressing myself and enjoying myself. Cathy’s kindness, compassion and patience has helped me change my internal monologue. I see my value. She’s shown me through her commitment that not everybody leaves, and not everybody hurts you. So I learnt that I could trust others, and have been able to let other people in. We’ve learnt about trauma, and how to reset myself when I am upset. We built a plan of things to do so that I could manage my emotions independently, but I still know I’ll never be alone in anything. More recently we have been using reiki as a means of healing. The combination of reiki and talking therapy has been magical for me. I’ve managed to actually ‘let go’ of events. It’s weird, I didn’t know what it was like before to be able to let go of something. The only way I can describe it is that it feels like the events didn’t happen to me, they belong to someone else and they cannot hurt me anymore. These are things I’ve been carrying for over 25 years, events and learnt behaviours so deeply ingrained in my being that their absence is little short of miraculous. I’ve made more progress in the 9 months we’ve been working this way than in the past 15 years of therapy. ​ I am so grateful to Cathy for all the time and energy she’s put into helping me heal and grow. A thank you never really seems big enough. ​

Cathy has been amazing in helping my daughter deal with her anxiety, she is always kind, professional, supportive and easy to speak to. My daughter has come on leaps and bounds with her mental health since seeing Cathy, I can’t recommend Cathy enough.

Myself & my husband started working with Cathy when we were at what we considered at the time to be breaking point within our marriage. It was a big step for us to reach out & admit that we needed help & it was after a long time of sweeping lots of issues under the carpet. From the moment we met Cathy she was very professional & clear but also friendly. She set the boundaries that we would work to out clearly & whilst being very honest and not afraid to ask difficult questions also has a soft way about her that makes you feel like you are in a safe place to be honest and vulnerable. She was able to identify and helped us to identify some key things in our marriage that were causing us conflict. She helped us to take a deeper look at things & for the first time in a long time I felt like I was relating to my husband in a way that I hadn’t perhaps ever! Whilst the sessions & the work is hard & sometimes painful, we both began to look forward to our sessions as it was a time we could be truly honest & listen to each other which in truth we hadn’t done in a long time. On a personal note Cathy helped me to realise a lot of things about myself & the work that she does with you inside the sessions is only the start of it. We went from feeling embarrassment and a little shame about seeing a counsellor to realising that this was one of the best things that we had ever done for our marriage. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Cathy and have come to realise the value that counselling, marriage or otherwise can really bring.

I visited Cathy to help with some traumatic events earlier in my life that I had never really dealt with. Recent stressful events had triggered me to flashback and re-live some of these moments. Cathy was able to show me that talking through the traumatic events with someone who was open and willing to listen could really help heal me.  Cathy guided me into talking through my life and its events as a review and to understand how these events shaped me as a person, always making sure I was comfortable with what I was talking about and where we were going.  Cathy has taught me to accept my moods as they are and this has allowed me to move on from a lot of the negative thoughts. This has enabled me to handle stress so much better, especially in the workplace. Cathy also helped me with some reiki healing, and this allowed me to heal from a spiritual side from one of the major traumatic events that I needed to move on from. Cathy helped me immensely and I feel like I’ve grown immensely in how I deal with challenges that come my way and look forward in life rather than looking back at traumatic events that now feel as if they are fully behind me. Thank you Cathy!