You're in the Driving Seat: How I Think About Counselling.

I often think about life like a map. When we’re younger, we might imagine it as a fairly straight line from A to B — but over time, it becomes clear that it’s much more complicated than that. There are detours, dead ends, unexpected turns, and periods where people can feel completely lost or unsure of where they are.

Counselling can feel similar. People often come when something has shifted, when there has been a loss, or when life no longer feels recognisable in the way it once did. It’s not always about having a clear destination in mind — sometimes it’s simply about needing space to pause and take stock.

I see the client very much in the driving seat. My role is more like a co-pilot — someone sitting alongside them, helping them look at the map, make sense of where they are, and notice what options might be available. At times, that might involve gently exploring how they arrived at this point. At others, it’s about identifying what direction feels possible, or even just tolerable, from here.

An important part of therapy that is often less visible is what happens outside of the room. The work doesn’t begin and end within the session. There can be a ripple effect — something that is thought about, felt, or spoken in therapy can continue to move and shift afterwards. This might show up in small ways: a different response in a conversation, a moment of pause before reacting, a new awareness of a pattern, or a feeling that lingers and gradually becomes clearer. Sometimes these changes are conscious, and sometimes they happen more quietly, in the background.

Therapy is not just about what happens in the hour. It’s about what begins there and continues to unfold beyond it, often in ways that take time to fully understand.