Alison Pederick Counselling

I am interested in how people’s backgrounds, values, life experiences and core beliefs contribute to and affect their current thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.

When a person feels overwhelmed or swamped by their current emotions, “negative” thoughts, and unhelpful behaviour patterns, it helps to have an objective, empathic and non-judgemental person really listen to them. An active listener, I help people explore, learn, and understand more about themselves, to consider the reasons they feel, think and act as they do, to set realistic plans and goals and implement helpful strategies and tools to improve their overall mental health and well-being.

The main counselling framework I use is based in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) theory and principles. However, just as there is a wide variety of people, there are many different types, approaches, and theories of counselling. For this reason, I use a variety of techniques tailored to the needs of each individual client, including mindfulness tools and practices, motivational interviewing techniques and solutions-focused therapy.

Common to all methods and techniques I use, is the person-centred approach, which puts the client at the very centre of the counselling process. In this approach the client’s needs are understood to drive the counselling process. I believe the client comes to counselling with the inherent capability to identify and make necessary changes. As a skilled listener I adopt a questioning rather than a directive approach, assisting the client to explore new possibilities.