Working with a counsellor involves clients sharing a lot of personal information about themselves. So, for my first blog I thought it would be good to share some things about myself and what led me to becoming a counsellor.  

My name is Katie and I am privileged to work as a full time counsellor in the beautiful market town of Oundle in Northamptonshire. I am 50 years old, married and mother to a 25 year old.  

Throughout my life I now recognise that I struggled with anxiety. I think it started when I was a young child and it developed into full blown panic attacks type anxiety in my 20’s.

I remember my first and worst panic attack when I was about 26.  I was convinced I was having a heart attack and needed to be taken to hospital to be convinced I wasn’t.  

I lived like this for years until eventually I decided enough was enough and this started my wonderful journey into counselling. I found a local counsellor and started work. I didn’t know what to expect and I was terrified before the first session.  It turned out to be the most amazing experience.  I am someone who struggles to share my worries and anxieties with others, but the counselling room was a place I could do this.  Counselling helped me to see that being vulnerable was a sign of strength. Plus, apparently, I was quite normal.  Counselling helped me to understand my anxiety and learn to reduce it to a much more manageable level.

After that I decided it was time in my life to start doing things for myself. I started a degree in Psychology which led me to re-training as a counsellor.  After 4 years of work I was qualified and ready to go.

So here I am now – working in private practice and loving my job. At times I do still find anxiety can creep back in – as it does with everyone. But now I have the tools which help me recognise when it’s happening and what I need to do to make it easier.

I cannot tell you how much I love counselling and how amazing it is.  To this day I still make time to see my own personal counsellor. This gives me the space I need to check in with myself, but it also ensures I am ok to do the job I do.  Now that doesn’t mean people have to be in counselling forever – it just means I choose to do it because it helps me so much.