Rate Matthew Higgins

I have become a therapist relatively late in life, in my late 50s, but that brings with it a wealth of life experience and a working life that has covered other professions. I believe in adopting a non-judgemental, person-centred therapeutic approach, where the client has time to express themselves fully and where I, as a therapist, spend much of the time listening and empathising with clients without pre-conditions and judgements.

The therapeutic environment needs to be safe, secure and somewhere that clients can bring their whole self to, without fear of being labelled, treated other than with respect and dignity, and where they feel they can be valued and their contribution is valid and understood. I am fully aware that clients often discuss issues, emotions and reactions with a therapist that they would not address elsewhere, indeed this is one of the principle raison d'etres of the counselling process, so appropriate confidence, reassurance and congruence are key for me in working with clients.

I qualifed in Leeds, West Yorkshire, in 2021 and as part of my Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling & Psychotherapy, was required to work in Placements obtaining 100 hours of client work. I continue to work professionally within these organisations, a charitable counselling service in North Yorkshire serving a wide range of clients, as well as working with a charity specialising in bereavement services. I also work with the Samaritans, which specialises in helping people with suicidal thoughts, ideation or actual plans to end their life.

While I work with clients of all ages, I find working with people of a similar age can often work particularly well, given issues that can be especially related to more mature people, whether it's bereavement, new relationships following separation or loss, "taking on" new families in later life, redundancy, career change and loneliness and isolation.

I firmly believe that counselling is not formulaic, and it's critical to always consider the individual needs of clients, so while my training was broadly in the Carl Rogers person-centred environment, I recognise that sometimes clients can benefit from other approaches which might be more about a directional approach and challenging clients around their views, attitudes or behaviours.