Christian McCabe

Hello to you. The fact that you’re reading these words gives me a sense that you may very well be in a place of deep anxiety and or hopelessness, or at least questioning your position within yours or another’s life and how you’re feeling about it right now. I can so relate to the feelings of truly knowing I need to ask for help, yet finding the courage to do so feels utterly overwhelming. You may be saying to yourself – “Who can I trust?” “Who would hear and understand me?” “Who would not judge or criticise me?” “Who could I talk to, that would be accepting of me as me?” I’ve churned such truthful questions over and over in my own head and as I’ve done so, finding that courage has felt even harder to somehow grab hold of.

It is a huge and courageous step, to follow this ‘finding a counsellor’ process right through to making contact, starting a process of change.

About counselling, me and how I work.

I am a BACP registered Integrative Humanistic counsellor and group facilitator, qualified to post graduate diploma level and have been practising full time for the last six years. ‘Integrative’ meaning the bringing together of the Psychodynamic, Person-Centred (humanistic) and Cognitive Behavioural principals of psychotherapy to help work towards you becoming a more fully functioning and whole person.

As a counsellor who also identifies as being gay, I offer professional integrity, a safe, non-judgemental and LGBT+ affirmative space to both individuals and couples in which to explore the many felt experiences attached to – personal crisis, the relationship with ourselves and with others, rejection or loss and the need to have control, feeling deeply anxious, the fear of facing ourselves, our identity – “Who am I and where do I belong?”, the many forms of the addictive personality (my own experience), or the awareness that our emotions or feelings which may have been long locked away, have now reached a point where one may feel as if being ‘eaten from the inside’ and it is now time to express, hear and feel these, find sense and resolve and set oneself free. In a nutshell, these and other life crippling issues that often leave you feeling you’ve no way out, have been my experience of what brings people into therapy.

Making contact and what to expect.

Sometimes, making sense and finding clarity and resolve can be simpler than perhaps imagined and change can be felt over a shorter period of time. On other occasions, many deeply rooted experiences and subsequent issues may take longer to work through. I am therefore happy to work in both the short term (minimum of 6 sessions) or longer term which can facilitate deeper, more reflective changes.

Such decisions and aims are explored and agreed upon together in our initial assessment process. I feel it is important to say at this point, as this will be our first meeting of each other, the assessment process not only helps me get a sense of you but you, getting a sense of me too – like a two-way street so to speak. What is fundamental to the success of any counselling experience, is the therapeutic relationship that develops between us.

I welcome your enquiry, either by email or mobile and will happily talk through what you feel your needs are, offering you an appointment to meet in either my rooms in Bristol or Highbridge where together, we’ll work out a plan of action. This is the assessment process which I mentioned earlier of which I do not charge.

On reflection of your assessment experience, should you feel we could work together, we would discuss a suitable time to meet each week, either during the day or early evenings and begin our work together.