My name is Amelie Lavan and I am a qualified, experienced counsellor offering counselling to adults in person or on-line. I also offer supervision to other trained therapists. I have twelve years counselling experience and a further four years experience as a voluntary counsellor with Cruse Bereavement Care. I was also a secondary and university teacher for many years and have post graduate qualifications in education. I’m a qualified group and family constellations facilitator. For me, the goal of counselling is to help people reclaim or find for the first time a sense of peace and purpose in their lives; lives which currently feel ‘taken over’ by anxiety, fear, depression, or loss of any kind. Our work together will explore your internal set up so that you can recognise what works well and what needs refiguring. We will find tools which will help liberate you from what keeps you stuck. My private practice is in Warley, West Yorkshire which is a few minutes drive from Halifax, Hebden Bridge or Huddersfield. We are also able to work effectively on line via Zoom or Skype.

What is counselling?
At times, all of us feel afraid, anxious, lost, depressed or frustrated. It’s our psyche’s way of telling us something important needs our attention. When we understand these feelings and find the courage to face them, we can then heal ourselves or make positive changes. It’s very hard to do this by ourselves because we’re too close to the problem so this is where counselling comes in. With me as your counsellor, we start a process together to help you discover what your present problem is trying to tell you. When we have clarity on the real nature of the problem, then we can work out strategies to deal with it. Why is this so hard to work out, you might ask? We have conscious and unconscious or hidden ways of behaving and responding to events, which are unique to us. This is a result of our life’s experiences, especially our early childhood ones and how we interpreted or made sense of them at the time. Some parts of us are healthy and respond appropriately to whatever is going on inside and outside ourselves. However, all of us have aspects which do not respond in appropriate ways. They come to the fore when we feel stressed or are experiencing difficult events. Inevitably, our relationship both to ourselves and to others is affected. Counselling is a process where we increase our awareness of our own patterns of behaviour and identify which ones are limiting us in some way. We start noticing things which we haven’t seen before, and start to see how they are holding us back. The more self aware we become of our patterns, the more we are able to assess which ones need to be challenged or changed in some way. We also need to acknowledge our healthy aspects and give them space so they can be nurtured. If you’re reading this website, this process has already begun. You are on the first step to changing your awareness so that you can have a better, more rewarding life.

How can counselling help me?
Counselling is a subtle process and is probably unlike anything else you’ve ever done. If you feel relaxed and safe enough, you will share things which you may not have shared with anyone else. The work can be demanding and challenging at times, but it is deeply rewarding and the benefits can be positively life changing. You will not be alone as you go on this inward journey. I will be with you as your counsellor. The work will be done in a confidential, empathic and respectful way. We will also go at a pace and to a depth which feels right for you now.
You may want to look at issues such as

- bereavement or loss of any kind
- depression
- anxiety
- panic attacks
- low self esteem
- anger and irritation
- relationship difficulties
- spiritual concerns
- sexuality issues
- stress
- sexual/emotional/physical abuse