What counselling
was actually like

Feeling welcome and at ease

From my initial contact with Chris, I have always felt welcome to share anything and at ease during the sessions. It has helped me get through a tough time in my life and gave me the skills to deal with it in a healthy manner, a safe space to express any thoughts and the ability to process without any judgement or bias.

I can’t thank Chris enough for his time and patience. I would say to anyone now thinking they would like some help to do it before it overwhelms you.

Written feedback supplied by Chris for publication. Spelling, capitalisation and punctuation corrected without changing the meaning.

The transcript, word for word

Hi Chris, hope you're doing well. It's just some feedback on the experience I've been working with yourself. Firstly, I want to say thank you so much for what quite simply was a life-changing experience, and I'll go through kind of some bits that really impacted me a lot. Obviously, what I'd say as well, first and foremost, if any man is considering going through counselling, I choose Chris day in day out, and I can tell you for why.

The first interaction was warm. He explained everything thoroughly, which initially put me at ease as I walked into that room, nervous, anxious, considering not even going. And but within five minutes, I felt comfortable enough to talk about some of the hardest things and biggest challenges I was currently going through or had been through.

Chris listened intently, never interrupted, never spoke overview, and absorbed all the information like a sponge, and never judged, which was one part that I thought might happen in a session, and it never happened.

All it was, the feedback I got, or the feedback that Chris gave me, he never told me what to do. He gave me the tools on how to deal with it because he's not preaching at you. He's not telling you what to do. He's absorbing, kind of telling. I'm not telling you that's wrong word again. He's making you aware of certain things.

So mine was. It might sound silly, but and he's like, well, it's not going to sound silly because it means something to you. So he'll pick up on little triggers and little flaws that you've got, and he'll give you coping mechanisms, and some will work, some won't work, but he will find a way and have patience with you.

And kind of his memory is incredible. He remembered everything from the session before, and that’s a week apart. And he was generally caring and interested.

And I probably at the start would have been a sceptic about counselling because I've been through it before and didn't see the benefit. Now I see the benefit to the extent that I'm doing more activities. I'm accepting myself as a person. I'm enjoying life a lot more. And generally, it's down to I used to look forward to the sessions with Chris where previous counselling felt like a box ticket exercise.

So I couldn't speak highly enough of him. And if, like, if you're considering counselling, I wouldn't give it a second thought. I'd give it a go, and I would certainly highly recommend Chris because the environment that you're in, it feels like you're just trying with a mate, but a mate with a lot more knowledge about obviously mental health than your mate might have. But yeah, I really, really couldn't recommend Chris highly enough.