Welcome To My Website

"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf" (Jon Kabat-Zinn)

We all experience difficulties in our lives; they may be related to work stress, prejudices, divorce, sickness, social isolation, relationship issues, midlife crisis, loneliness, abuse, loss of loved ones, disappointments, failures or others. We can’t avoid pain, and we don’t have control over upsetting events, but we can learn to understand and deal with them better.

“The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer”(Thomas Merton)

What is Counselling?

“The term ‘counselling’ includes work with individuals and with relationships which may be developmental, crisis support, psychotherapeutic, guiding or problem solving.... The task of counselling is to give the ‘client’ an opportunity to explore, discover and clarify ways of living more satisfyingly and resourcefully.” (Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, 1984)





I have been counselling for over 16 years and am an accredited member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), UKRCP registered and a member of the EMDR Association UK & Ireland.

My work experience includes: -

5 years with MIND, where I counselled a wide range of clients and facilitated a counselling group.

2 years with PARENTHOOD counselling children of divorcing parents and adults with marital difficulties.

10 years with AXA ICAS as a Telephone Counsellor and Case Manager. While working with Axa I supported organisations on site involved with critical incidents, redundancies, bereavement and other trauma related events.

15 years in private practice in East Grinstead. I see clients in my counselling room, which has a separate entrance from my house and is comfortable and private.

Training

Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling (1997)

Certificate in Stress Management (2005)

Certificate in Cognitive Therapy (2007)

Primary Certificate in Trauma & PTSD (2007)

Fully Trained EMDR Counsellor (2008)

Completed MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) Course (2009)

Various other courses including Transactional Analysis, Working with Couples, Trauma, CBT for anxiety, Psychosomatic Psychotherapy, Neuroscience of Trauma and Loss in children, Somatic Interventions for Enhancing EMDR Effectiveness. Working with the Neurobiological Legacy of Trauma.


My Approach

We all come from different backgrounds and have our own individuality and uniqueness. We perceive and interpret the world, ourselves and others differently. I take into account each client’s individuality and diversity of needs, working as an integrative counsellor. This means I use different theoretical approaches and techniques, particularly:- CBT, EMDR, Mindfulness, Person-centered, Solution Focused.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

is a type of psychotherapy developed by psychiatrist Aaron T Beck. Cognitive therapy helps clients overcome difficulties by identifying dysfunctional thinking, behaviour, and emotional responses. This involves helping clients develop skills for modifying beliefs, identifying distorted thinking, relating to others in different ways and changing behaviours.

EMDR

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. Developed by Francine Shapiro, it integrates elements of effective psychodynamic, imaginal exposure, cognitive therapy, interpersonal, experiential, physiological and somatic therapies with bilateral stimulation (e.g. eye movements, tones, or tapping). EMDR unlocks what is natural within each of us. Read More

Mindfulness

Is an approach to life based on the understanding that "the present is the only time that any of us have to be alive - to know anything - to perceive - to learn - to act - to change - to heal" (Kabat-Zinn 1990). It is about being fully awake in our lives, paying attention with intention and without judgement. Through these practices we have the opportunity to access our own inner resources for insight, transformation and healing. Both scientific research and reports from course participants indicate a wealth of physical and psychological benefits. (Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice, Bangor University)

Person-centred

Founder Carl Rogers. The person-centred view places high value on the experience of the individual human being and on the importance of his or her subjective reality. It challenges each person to accept responsibility for his or her own life and to trust in the inner resources which are available to all those who are prepared to set out along the path of self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Solution Focused

Is a method of dealing with problems that require a practical solution. This approach is helpful in stress counselling, stress, crisis management and performance anxiety. M.Scott Peck said: Confronting and solving problems is a painful process which most of us attempt to avoid. And the very avoidance results in greater pain and an inability to grow both mentally and spiritually.

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EMDR

EMDR is an acronym for 'Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing'. It is a powerful psychological treatment method that was developed by clinical psychologist, Dr Francine Shapiro, in the 1980s. Since its original development, EMDR is also increasingly used to help individuals with other issues: Anxiety, Depression, Phobias, Stress, Pain, Performance Anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Low self-esteem and others.

EMDR includes elements of mindfulness, somatic awareness, exposure, and cognitive therapies and is an eight-phase treatment plan. Which consists of:

  1. History Taking and Treatment Planning
  2. Thorough Preparation
  3. Assessment
  4. Desensitisation
  5. Installation
  6. Body Scan
  7. Closure
  8. Reevaluation

In EMDR we work with the most charged memory, the negative belief of oneself, feelings and bodily sensations, while using bilateral stimulation. The alternating left-right stimulation of the brain with eye moments, sounds or taps stimulates the frozen or blocked information processing system. EMDR unlocks what is natural within each of us. It is our innate healing process that has been blocked and can be unblocked with EMDR. In the process the distressing memories lose their intensity, so that the memories are less distressing and more like ‘ordinary memories’.

"A full course of EMDR treatment involves not only resolving the traumatic events of the past that are the origin of the client's problem but also targeting present triggers and anticipating future events, so that the individual is empowered to go forward in life free from the symptoms that initially led the client to seek therapy." (Carol Forgash/Margaret Copeley)




Areas I Work With




Testimonials


"Counselling has been helping me to recover from anxiety and depression. The EMDR sessions with Evita made me firstly go deeper and discover the root of my issues, secondly the EMDR sessions helped me understand how my ways of thinking had been affecting my behaviour. With Evita’s help, I have learnt coping strategies and techniques to tackle anxiety attacks and panic attacks. By breaking old bad thinking patterns it enabled me to change my behaviour and enjoy life more now. Counselling has given me my confidence back, and gave me tools to use in every day life. I am glad that I turned to counselling for help and I would recommend it to anyone who is facing similar problems I had, so that they could improve their quality of life too."


"Counselling with Evita has changed my life, for the better."


"I had a few telephone counselling sessions. I have been suffering with physical ailments for a few years and was in desperate need to talk to someone outside my family. Counselling has helped me to understand that I can’t change everything, but I can change the way how I approach things. I am learning to accept what is and not use my little energy to fight to get rid of my illness. Counselling has helped and I hope I can put into practise the things I have learned."


"Counselling has been educational and comforting. I have always been interested in what makes us humans tick. I have found the sessions very helpful and have always come away feeling lighter and happier and would like to thank you for that."


"I had a few EMDR sessions due to a trauma a few years ago. I was surprised how quickly it worked and I am now able to function in my day to day life without disturbing memories of that trauma."

Quotes

* The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness. (Abraham Maslow)

* There are two primary choices in life; to accept conditions as they are, or accept the responsibility for changing them. (Gandhi)

* God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. (Reinhold Niebuhr)

* Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing, the last of human freedoms: to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. (Viktor Frankl - Man's Search For Meaning)

* "I know that without the suffering, the growth that I have achieved would have been impossible." (Viktor Frankl - Man's Search For Meaning)

* Get off auto-pilot and take back the controls of your life. (Paul McGee)

* Love in the past is only a memory. Love in the future is only a fantasy. True love lives in the here and now. (The Buddha)

* It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. (Epictetus)

* It's not a matter of letting go—you would if you could. Instead of "Let it go," we should probably say "Let it be." (Jon Kabat-Zinn)

* I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. (Robert Frost)

Fees

1 hour session

Face to Face session - £40.00

Telephone Counselling - £40.00

Couples - £50.00

Skype - £40.00

Companies - by arrangement

24 hours notice is required when cancelling a session, otherwise the full fee for that session will be charged.

Contact Me

Evita Mann Counselling

Address:

56 Fulmar Drive
East Grinstead
West Sussex
RH19 3NN

Phone: 01342 410540

email: evitacounselling@gmail.com

© Evita Mann