Rhianne — Trainee Counsellor

Key information

Level 4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling
Person-centred approach
Student Member of the BACP (Membership No. 01045871)
Fit to practise certificate
Availability: Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6pm — 9pm

Opening line

Rhianne works in the person-centred tradition — which means she will not tell you what your difficulty is, or what you ought to do about it. She will listen, properly, until you find your own way to it.

About Rhianne

Rhianne is a trainee counsellor working towards her Level 4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling. Her training is grounded in the person-centred approach, and covers active listening, counselling skills and person-centred theory alongside supervised practice.

She works with adults experiencing anxiety, low mood, difficulties with self-esteem, work-related pressure and relationship challenges. She offers evening appointments, which can make a difference for people whose working week leaves no room for anything else.

Rhianne’s Philosophy

“I don’t think my job is to work you out or tell you what’s wrong. Deep down, most people have some sense of what they’re experiencing, even if they can’t put it into words yet. Sometimes what we need most is someone who will stay with us, listen, and give us the time and space to find those words for ourselves.”

Therapeutic Approach — Person-Centred Counselling

What person-centred counselling is

Person-centred counselling is an approach that places you at the heart of the process. Rather than the counsellor setting an agenda, working to a programme, or steering you toward a particular conclusion, you set the direction — and the counsellor’s task is to stay alongside you while you do.

The approach was developed by the psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1940s and 1950s, and it rests on a straightforward idea. Given the right conditions, people tend to move toward what is right for them. The counsellor does not supply the answer. They offer conditions in which your own sense of things can become clearer to you.

This makes it different from more structured approaches. There is no set course of sessions, no worksheets, no techniques to practise between appointments. What there is instead is a particular quality of attention, sustained over time — which sounds slight, described on a page, and is not slight at all when you are in it.

The three conditions Rhianne works to offer

Rogers identified three qualities that make this approach work. They sound simple. They are demanding to hold consistently, and learning to hold them is a large part of what person-centred training involves.

Empathy — not sympathy, and not agreement. Empathy means genuinely trying to understand how things look from inside your experience, and checking that understanding with you rather than assuming it. If Rhianne has misread something, she will want to know.
Congruence — sometimes called genuineness. The counsellor is a real person in the room rather than someone performing a professional role. You are not being managed by a technique.
Unconditional positive regard — you are accepted as you are, without conditions attached. Not approved of, not agreed with, not praised. Accepted. Including the parts you would rather not say out loud.

Why this suits the difficulties Rhianne works with

Rogers also described what he called conditions of worth — the sense many people pick up early on that they are acceptable only when they are a particular way. Useful. Coping. Not too much. Doing well at work. Not needing anything from anyone.

Those conditions tend to sit underneath low self-esteem, and they are often what makes low mood so difficult to speak about. If you have learned that being acceptable depends on managing, then admitting you are not managing costs something. This is the specific point at which being accepted without conditions does its work — and it is why the person-centred approach fits the areas Rhianne offers rather than merely being applicable to them.

The same holds for the other difficulties she works with. Anxiety is often easier to explore when you do not have to justify it or make it sound reasonable first. Relationship difficulties are easier to look at honestly, including your own part in them, when no one is assigning fault. Pressure at work, where being valued for what you produce is built into the arrangement, has an obvious relationship to conditions of worth.

What a session is actually like

You decide what to bring. Rhianne will not arrive with a plan for the session.
You set the pace. Nothing has to be covered by a particular point.
Silences are allowed. They are often where something arrives.
You will not be told what to do. You may well be asked what you make of something.
You will be checked with rather than interpreted at.

What Rhianne Can Help With

Anxiety and pressure

Anxiety and worry
Work-related stress and pressure
Feeling overwhelmed

Low mood and self-esteem

Low mood
Low self-esteem and low self-confidence
Self-criticism and the sense of not being enough

Relationships

Relationship challenges
Difficulty being honest about what you need from people

Working with a Trainee Counsellor

As a trainee counsellor, Rhianne works under regular clinical supervision provided by Hope Therapy & Counselling Services. This means her work is closely supported and guided by experienced professionals. All trainee counsellors at Hope Therapy follow the same standards of ethical practice, confidentiality and safeguarding as our qualified team members.

Rhianne is a student member of the BACP. Her placement work forms part of her Level 4 Diploma and is formally supervised throughout.

Format Options

Rhianne offers online sessions via secure videoconferencing (Zoom or Teams) to clients across England. Online counselling can be helpful for people with busy schedules, caring responsibilities, mobility concerns, or who simply prefer the privacy of connecting from their own space.

Appointments are available on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6pm.

Book your free 15-minute consultation: https://calendly.com/hopetherapy/15-minute-consultation