Most of the work of our Counselling Support Services (CSS) is one to one counselling.  We have five counsellors who are all trained to nationally recognised professional standards, and who have extensive experience of working in palliative care.  An appointment with a counsellor is usually referred to as a session. Counselling sessions can be held here at the Hospice, or at home if personal circumstances require this. The service also offers group counselling. All group counselling is held here at the Hospice.

We understand that people often feel diffident about counselling. We recognise that it can be a hard step to take and we always emphasise that it is fine to come and meet with one of us to find out how CSS can help you.

A counsellor is a listener: an attentive and enquiring listener, who can reflect on what is said to them, at many levels. Sometimes the comment that is made with a laugh can conceal the greatest pain, and by being alert to this incongruence a counsellor may be able to create, in the confidentiality and trust of a counselling session, an opportunity for the pain beneath to be felt and spoken.

We also use what are thought of as more directive counselling interventions, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. These rely on the counselling client being able to recognise and value their own needs and resources in order to be able to use their own resources better. The counsellor must still attend to the client first and foremost to foster the confidence the client needs to make these changes.