Vanessa Haynes

Hello. I am a person-centred, psychodynamic exploratory counsellor offering private counselling both online and face to face. I have spent several years working in counselling agencies in Belfast and Downpatrick, Northern Ireland. I now work with clients from across the UK from my private practice, Pentimento Counselling.

I work with adult clients, from across the UK, on either a long or short term basis. I work regularly with adult survivors of childhood trauma. I am also hearing-impairment aware. Hearing loss can come with feelings of shame and isolation – and can significantly impact our ability to connect.

I am based in Killyleagh where I offer in-person, face to face counselling. I also offer online sessions and Walk and Talk within the Downpatrick area. 

Our sense of self, the world, and our relationships, can be profoundly informed by early life experiences, even if those early life experiences, like a pentimento painting, are hidden from view.

We all experience difficulties in life and not all of those challenges will be hidden from us. If you are looking at this page, you are looking to find a therapist and perhaps struggling to manage something on your own. Perhaps you can't quite put your finger on what that is or maybe the problem is all too clear, and too pressing, to manage by yourself.

A good counselling relationship is about creating a neutral space where you can safely explore the challenges you are facing without judgement. Whether you are experiencing anxiety or depression; struggling with loss or challenging relationships; living with adverse childhood experiences (ACES) or feeling a loss of purpose or self, together we can explore those blocks in the road and together discover a way through them.

Counselling can bring us relief, it can stop us feeling alone. It can bring us into the moment or bring us face to face with our past. You may discover something new about yourself or a new way of looking at the problems you are facing but ultimately, it will be you who decides the journey we will travel on together. 

After you've made contact, we'll arrange to have a brief conversation - by phone or online - at a time that is convenient to you. This initial conversation is an opportunity to discuss why you are coming to counselling and the kind of support I can offer you. It's a chance for you to ask questions too. It's important that you feel confident about choosing me as your counsellor and that I feel I am someone who can support you.

If you would like to progress to booking sessions, we will agree a time and I will send you a contract which will include some further information about how I work.

Our first session together will then involve a bit more information gathering about you, your strengths and the challenges you have faced in the past. 

After all that talking from me in our early interactions, it may be a bit of a surprise to experience a more non-directive approach as we progress into our therapy sessions together. Non-directive means you will set the direction of our work and each week, you will decide where we focus our attention. It might feel a bit strange at first but from the beginning, you will be deciding the focus of our attention and I will be attentive to where you take us. Together, we will explore the topics at hand and together, we will begin to unpack some of the challenges you are dealing with and themes that present themselves.

My key job is to listen carefully to what is on your mind and to be curious about its meaning. One of my favourite descriptions of what a counsellor does is they offer a facilitated conversation with yourself.

I believe real change takes place within a trusting therapeutic alliance and that can take time. I suggest, in the first instance, to consider committing to four sessions before committing to more. This way, you can assess how you are feeling about our alliance and whether our working relationship is working for you.

In our first session together, we will build on our initial conversation and there will be a bit of information gathering. We will talk about the issues that have bought you to counselling at this time, we might reflect on previous challenges you have faced and what kinds of things have helped you in the past. Together, we will discuss what you hope to get from counselling now.

Over the course of this first session, we will both get a sense of whether we would like to continue together and how. 

At the end of your first counselling session, if you would like to continue, we will agree some achievable goals for our time together. These may include short or long term goals.

For some clients, we may work on a short-term basis but for others, that might need to be more open-ended. In both cases, we will regularly check in together to monitor our progress and assess whether we are addressing your needs.

You may be wondering why those goals will be regularly assessed. People can come into counselling focused on one particular issue only to find it is underpinned by some deeper-held, unaddressed concern and it's only when we sit and spend time reflecting on one issue, that those underlying thoughts or feelings or past experiences come to light. That's why it's important to keep checking in together and making sure we're on track whilst allowing a little bit of flexibility.

So, where would you like to begin?