Resolved! Counselling for Children, led by Paul Hughes BA Hons, ADip Hyp (NC), MNSHP, CHFP, UKCP.
Fees
Sessions in Reading, Oxford and online cost £70 each and last for 50 minutes or thereabouts. Payment can be made in cash or by card / bank transfer. Face to face sessions are paid at the end of each session and payment for online sessions should be made within 24 hours of the session taking place.
Qualifications and experience
Qualified to work with adults since 2012, I achieved an Advanced Diploma (Distinction) in psychotherapy from the National College of Hypnosis and Psychotherapy in 2014. This led to full UKCP accreditation in January 2015. I have recently earned a Diploma in Child and Adolescent Counselling (one half of an MA – which will come in time) from Terapia. Since becoming qualified as a psychotherapist I have worked with pretty much everything under the sun, being particularly experienced in working with adolescents and adults who are placed upon the autistic spectrum.
Why am I a psychotherapist?
I am what Christians once called a ‘reluctant convert’ I didn’t come naturally to being a therapist. I used to be a stiff upper lip kind of person, believing myself strong because I could shut feelings away and carry on.
As my clients eventually discover, feelings can’t be treated in such a manner indefinitely, at least without exacting a heavy toll. I eventually did succumb to the ridiculous idea of working with a counsellor and found it to be utterly transformative. I wished I had gone years earlier!
That and other experiences led me to believe that perhaps I could train to be a therapist too. I began to look for courses which were rigorous and which suited what I then believed suited the kind of therapist I’d like to become.
I had spent 13 years as a secondary school teacher by this point in time. I loved working with young people but I had absolutely no love at all for the mindless bureaucracy, the stifling structures, the endless routine or marking. I can recall, even now, the feeling of dread at the sight of piles of piles of books waiting to be marked.
I now had a different ambition, a new goal and worked towards it furiously, loving every case study, every essay, every aspect of training to fulfil a role I could finally enjoy completely.
I qualified with a distinction in the end. Some time later I became a trainer for those who had trained me, for a while. I began to present on how to use my modality of psychotherapy with asperger’s clients, visiting groups of counsellors, psychotherapists and hypnotherapists across the country. I left teaching for good, a year after I formally qualified as a psychotherapist and quite quickly built one of the busiest psychotherapy practices in Oxfordshire and Berkshire.
Why then did I become a Child and Adolescent Counsellor?
Because of my experience in teaching I had a vast array of experience in working with young people of eleven years of age and older. My clinical supervisor was happy for me to work with this age bracket and I found that I really enjoyed it.
However, it soon became apparent that there was a whole cohort of children with whom I had no real experience and for whom existing ways of delivering therapy simply wouldn’t work.
All the while as I worked with adults and adolescents I received emails and ‘phone calls from parents who wanted me to work with their younger children. Unfortunately, however, I was untrained in working with young children and had absolutely no idea of what I could do with them.
By 2018 I realised that I really wanted to be able to work with younger children and also to achieve a true qualification for my work with adolescents and teenagers. This is why I began training, in January 2019, to convert my existing qualification in adult psychotherapy into a masters in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.
I hugely enjoy helping my younger clients to overcome their problems. I have them to overcome school refusal, OCD, social anxiety, separation anxiety, enuresis, trichotillomania, dermotillomania, insomnia, enuresis, encopresis, anxieties surrounding asperger’s syndrome, self-esteem, shame, grief, conversion disorder and so much more besides.
What kind of therapy do I use with children and teenagers?
I’m what they call an ‘integrative’ psychotherapist when it comes to working with my adult clients. To be integrative means that I take a group of separate therapeutic traditions and integrate them into a coherent whole.
Some therapists are person centred. Some are psychodynamic. Some use gestalt psychotherapy. Some specialise in using mindfulness and others use nothing but hypnotherapy. Over the years I have learned to blend them into a therapeutic combination of my own.
The younger the child, however, the less this form of therapy works in its purest forms. It’s for this reason that I trained to use play, sand-tray, puppets, art, music and other more traditional forms of child and adolescent psychotherapy. As I learn to use them I also learn to integrate my former training into the mix, with good results.
Every child is unique. The way they experience their problems is unique. The therapy to which they will best respond will also be unique. My diverse training means that I am well placed to help your child, by whichever psychotherapeutic means prove most effective for them.
So what can you do now?
I’d like you to call me, if possible. A conversation on the telephone is the best way to establish whether I am the best person to help your son or daughter. Sure, we can communicate by email (and I’m happy to) but it takes a whole lot longer and when we speak you’ll soon find out that I’m friendly, personable and warm.
Call me on 07786 123736 / 01183 280284 / 01865 600970 whenever you feel ready. If you’d rather then email me at paul@resolvedcounsellingforchildren.com. Alternatively you could use the contact form at the bottom of this page.
Best wishes
