The Counselling Room

How Counselling Works

two women sitting on a couch talking to each other
If you've never seen a counsellor before — or if you have, and something didn't quite work — here's an honest account of what working with me actually looks like.

Four-Step Visual Timeline

How It Unfolds

Step 1

Free Zoom call

We talk about what's brought you here and whether I'm the right person to help. No pressure, no obligation, no jargon.

Step 1

Free Zoom call

We talk about what's brought you here and whether I'm the right person to help. No pressure, no obligation, no jargon.

Step 2

First session

We understand your situation — what's happening, how it's affecting you, what progress would feel like. No fixed agenda. I follow your lead.

Step 2

First session

We understand your situation — what's happening, how it's affecting you, what progress would feel like. No fixed agenda. I follow your lead.

Step 3

Ongoing work

Weekly or fortnightly, 50 minutes. I work at the level of emotion — with your whole person, not a checklist of problems to solve.

Step 3

Ongoing work

Weekly or fortnightly, 50 minutes. I work at the level of emotion — with your whole person, not a checklist of problems to solve.

Step 4

When you're ready

There is no right answer to how long this takes. Some people come for a season. Others stay much longer — and what keeps them is not dependency or unfinished business, but something simpler and harder to find: a place where they can say what they cannot say anywhere else. The feelings that would wound a partner. The fears they cannot speak aloud to their children. The grief they have been managing so carefully, for so long, that they have forgotten it is still there. This is where all of that is allowed. We decide together how long that looks like. And we keep deciding.

Step 4

When you're ready

There is no right answer to how long this takes. Some people come for a season. Others stay much longer — and what keeps them is not dependency or unfinished business, but something simpler and harder to find: a place where they can say what they cannot say anywhere else. The feelings that would wound a partner. The fears they cannot speak aloud to their children. The grief they have been managing so carefully, for so long, that they have forgotten it is still there. This is where all of that is allowed. We decide together how long that looks like. And we keep deciding.

"You cannot think your way out of what you feel. You have to move through it — and that's what I'm here for.”
Sabrina Barbara

What Makes This Different

I'm not here to teach you coping skills or give you homework. I'm an experiential therapist — I work with what's actually happening in the room, in real time, at the level of emotion. That's where lasting change happens. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is one of the most rigorously researched therapeutic approaches in the world. It works — not as a bandage, but at the root.