Practitioners

Anna Skinner

What I offer in my counselling

Are you facing a crisis of meaning or purpose? Or are you having difficulty facing the loss of someone special, your health, dreams or expectations?

In my counselling I will provide a warm, safe, non-judgemental space in which we can sensitively explore what you are finding difficult at present. We will explore your feelings, thoughts and perceptions to help you understand yourself more and be able to address your situation, maybe in a more playful and less rigid way, coming to an acceptance of what can and can’t be changed. Counselling may help you to make possible links – present with past – which in turn may help you to improve your understanding of yourself or experience yourself in a new light and, using that knowledge, find coping strategies that work for you.

My counselling approach

I was trained in the dialogue between Person-centred and Psychodynamic modalities at Edinburgh University and use both approaches to help understand my clients’ lives. I lean more towards the psychodynamic approach since I feel we can never come to that deeper understanding of ourselves in the present without some understanding of our past. We are social beings and we cannot escape how relationships in our early years affect how we relate to others in the present, often in an unconscious way. Through psychodynamic work together we can carefully bring the unconscious into the conscious. Working this way can help us to look at our defences, such as projections and denials, which we often unconsciously build into our behaviours in order to cope with managing our day to day relationships.

A bit about me

Since my childhood I have had a love of the natural world and it continues to be a source of well-being, inspiration and creativity for me. Before training as a counsellor, I pursued
a Doctorate in Botany, specialising in understanding how plants have adapted to challenging environments. My work and my family have given me the opportunity to live and work in many different countries. I love and have learned so much from the rich diversity of people I have met and worked with. It is the uniqueness of each individual and their life stories that inspires me in my work as a counsellor.

Click here to email Anna

Tel: 0131 225 8092

Services

Psychodynamic Counselling

£55 for 50 mins

Concessions available