The counselling room is a unique place, where the focus can be completely on you. When you come for counselling you have an opportunity to express, experience and explore thoughts and feelings that may, at times, be very difficult. Often this isn’t possible even with your closest family and friends. I provide a supportive and accepting environment to help you to feel safe to do this.
Like the other counsellors in Oxford Listening Collective, I am in Integrative Therapist. This means that I bring together different theories to help you to feel heard, to understand yourself and your relationship dynamics and to make changes to your life. The core of my training is in humanistic theories, which means that collaboration, compassion and authenticity are at the heart of my practice.
As a counsellor, I am used to working with loss, grief, bereavement, anxiety, depression, trauma and relationship difficulties. I have spent several years in different roles in cancer support centres, and I currently work with young people in a secondary school.
I think that some of the most valuable experience I bring to counselling comes from outside of my counselling training. I spent several years working in the healthcare sector in a practice that specialised in pelvic disorders, mainly, but not exclusively, in women. I saw first-hand the very real psychological effects of chronic pain and illness, and also the physical manifestations of psychological pain. I believe strongly in a compassionate and holistic approach to the management of chronic health issues. I’ve also worked in cancer research with families who are living with the challenge of being at high risk of disease.
I am a qualified mediator with training in conflict coaching, and sometimes I find that this knowledge can be helpful if people have particular difficulties with communication that they need to address. I continue to work for a charity that helps young people and families, and neighbours, to resolve disputes.
I know that it can take courage to seek help. When you take the first step to contact a counsellor, you have already made a brave decision. Almost everyone who takes it further and comes for a first visit feels trepidation and anxiety when they first step into the room. Remember that the whole process stays under your control, so you make the decision to come back only if you want to.
If you decide to take the next step, I will look forward to meeting you.
lucycunninghamcounselling@gmail.com
Qualifications and Training:
- BACP individual member (MBACP)
- BACP Certificate of Proficiency
- CPCAB TC-Level 4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling, Banbury Counselling Academy
- Mental Health First Aid Certificate
- Certificate in Online Counselling
- Foundation in Group Analysis, Institute of Group Analysts
- Postgraduate Certificate in Psychodynamic Counselling, University of Oxford
- Certificate of Training as an Accredited Mediator, London School of Mediation
- Postgraduate Diploma, History of Art, University of Oxford
- PhD, Cancer Genetics, University of Edinburgh
- BSc (Hons) Genetics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
OXFORD LISTENING COLLECTIVE 