Take Control Counselling - Steve Thomerson

I completed a  Post Graduate Diploma in Counselling in 1985 and  have been actively involved in counselling couples & individuals, pupils & students and parents & families ever since.  I now run a full time counselling & life coaching practice and prior to this was a Head of Year in secondary schools in Hampshire and North London.  I have a Bachelor of Education degree that involved research into the causes and effects of stress and a Masters degree that focused on aspects of cognitive development, affects on behaviour  and research into the affects of personal recording  on self-esteem and personal development.  During this time, I also provided counselling training to teachers and health professionals. 

Attending numerous workshops and seminars including courses in couple counselling and depression has ensured my knowledge and practice remains up to date and relevant.

I have an eclectic approach including counselling, life coaching and cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and have been influenced by Curly Martin's Lifeskills Handbook and the Human Givens approach as developed by Jo Griffen from the Mindfields College.  Recent developments in brain science have informed these therapeutic techniques which help manage and alleviate depression, phobias, obsessive behaviours and post traumatic stress syndrome.
  
Further recent training in telephone and online counselling provided by Kate Anthony President of the International Society for Mental Health Online (ISMHO) enables me to offer an email and telephone service to clients as an alternative or addition to face to face counselling.

I am an Associate Member of the BACP (British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists), www.bacp.co.uk and am  bound by its ethical guidelines for good practice in counselling and psychotherapy.  I also hold membership of the BABCP (British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies) www.babcp.com, and am a registered counsellor with www.counselling-directory.org.uk. 

I am committed to equal opportunity and provide a high quality professional counselling service for all regardless of colour, race, age, gender, disability or sexual preference.  I hold an enhanced CRB certificate.

TESTIMONIALS

I am grateful to the following clients for allowing me to use their testimonials as the counselling experience is a very private one.  Of course their anonimity has been respected and I hope you find them useful.

Steve is a kind and empathic counsellor, as a couple we had struggled with our partnership and there was no longer any fun in our lives. Things were looking extremely bleak for us.  Our sessions with Steve helped us both get our lives back on track and perhaps more importantly rediscovered our love for each other.
Thank you Steve for helping us find our way again, our meetings helped us identify where we were going wrong. The ‘homework’ that was set rekindled the romance in our lives that had gradually disappeared over a number of years.   Trevor G July 2010

Steve has a very open and honest approach to counselling, which I found very refreshing.  He has put a tailor-made course of CBT together for me, which is helping me greatly.
I would recommend Steve to anyone who is looking for some counselling. He is an extremely approachable, relaxed and honest person.  Ben G March 2009

I would recommend Steve to anybody who is looking for support to overcome a personal challenge. When I contacted Steve I was feeling extremely low, a feeling which had developed over a long period of time. I felt that I couldn't cope with my work anymore and that I generally wasn't good enough at work or at home. I felt like a had a huge weight on my shoulders and yet guilty that I should feel that way given all the people in the world worse off than I was. I was wary of approaching a counsellor as I had had negative experiences previously, however from the first email contact Steve was friendly and professional and seemed to genuinely want to help. This impression continued when I visited Steve and I found his office to be a very welcoming and homely place, nothing like the imagined white bare walled room! My second fear, that there would be long periods of silence, also turned out to be unfounded and the counselling often took a form more like a discussion.
Steve taught me relaxation techniques, helped me to recognise the cycle of negative thinking that I had been in for very many years and helped me to work out ways to break the cycle. We examined aspects of the past that may have fed into my negative feelings but the focus was always on how I could improve things for the future. It particularly helped me that Steve was a teacher and had a better than usual understanding of the pressures I was under on a day to day basis.
Like everyone I still have good and bad days but I feel much better able to cope and feel more positive about my work and home life. I am not seeing Steve at the moment but know that I could go back to see him at any time and still get the support I need.  AC  July 2007