Karen Lawrence

I work Monday - Thursday daytime and Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  

I am not available on Friday or at weekends.

Daytime appointments are £60 evening appointments are £70

With almost 30 years of specialist clinical counselling experience, Karen Lawrence relating2others MSW, BSc Hons offers Individual Therapy, Couples Counselling including LGBT+, Family Counselling, whether you describe your issues as Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder (CSBD), Sex Addiction or Porn Addiction, or, if you are unsure my counselling services are available in Bangor Co. Down, Northern Ireland and around the UK and Ireland. I also provide therapy for Partners and for Couples and Sex and Porn Addiction.

I offer a free 10-15 minute phone call to check out your needs and explain my counselling services

I am a Senior Accredited Counsellor and Supervisor with the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (Â鶹ԭ´´); Member of the Association for the Treatment of Sex Addiction and Compulsivity (ATSAC); Level 3 Professional Register of Association of Counselling and Telephone Online (ACTO): holder of Relate Certificate in Couple Counselling and Advanced Diploma in Family Counselling.

My appointments are flexible to suit your needs whether short or longer term counselling including therapy appointments remotely via Zoom or WhatsApp or in-person. I work daytime Monday - Thursday and evenings Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. 

My approaches to counselling are Psychodynamic (the unconscious), Systemic (systems and environment) Attachment informed, Trauma informed (Polyvagal theory). In particular with couples, I specialist in uncovering the 'couple fit' and in working with sex and porn addiction the OAT model of opportunity, attachment and trauma.

I blend together all of my knowledge and experiences with compassion, understanding and commitment to your welfare to empower you in your journey in life.

What can I expect - The Initial Assessment session

Following our phone call I offer an initial assessment to consider how counselling could be helpful. I will be interested in what has brought you to therapy as well as what has happened historically, understanding your thoughts, ideas and your needs. I will explain my counselling approaches and together we can begin to map out how we might deal with the issues. Therapy needs to be affordable so I will check out any scheduling limitations and budget. There is no commitment to therapy and we all can reflect on whether to continue; my priority is that you feel welcomed, heard and understood having had a meaningful experience.

My first session and can counselling help and does it change lives?

Following the initial assessment session and beginning to map out what we will be working on, I will encourage you to understand and connect thoughts and feelings, to begin to make sense of why you are in this position and from that start to do things differently, develop coping strategies, learn something new or unexpected.

I help you to stand back from you issue,s to see the wood for the trees and /or zoom in on the detail and help you to articulate the specific.

Together we will practice ongoing reality testing by putting all of the above together to create a virtuous circle to apply the learning and promote change in your life.

Monday - Thursday 9am - 5pm

Friday 9am - 1pm

About Me:

I am a qualified and experienced supervisor of 20 years with capacity to work at great relational depth both online, telephone and face-to-face, offering a layering of modalities such as relational, psychodynamic, systemic, attachment, trauma and addiction along with meta supervision models such as 'The Seven-Eyed Supervisor' (psychodynamic) and the 'Domains of Action' (systemic).

Supervision Overview

Having qualified as a Supervisor in 2004, I became a Â鶹ԭ´´ Senior Accredited Supervisor in 2007, ATSAC Supervisor from 2010 and ACTO Senior Professional Supervisor, Level 3 in 2023. I supervise individual, trainee, qualified counsellors and psychotherapists and other supervisors and the related professionals such as CEOs, clinical leads/managers of organisations and social services based practices and a number of charities, mental health, cancer focused and charities specifically arising from the Northern Ireland 'Troubles'.

I am bound by the Â鶹ԭ´´ Ethical Framework for the counselling profession and the Â鶹ԭ´´ Supplementary Guidance Working Online (GPA 047), the ATSAC Values, Vision and Mission of Inclusivity, Care, Equality, Responsibility and Striving to see the highest standard in everything we say and do. Reflecting and promoting the latest thinking in Sex Addiction forming part of these standards. I uphold the ACTO Code of Ethics and provide confidentiality within all of the above guidelines.

My Approach to Supervision:

I am an Integrative Practitioner incorporating modalities of psychodynamic, systemic, attachment, trauma informed and somatic polyvagal led.

I supervise with an Integrative Process Model and then The Seven-Eyed Supervisor developed by Peter Hawkings and Robin Shohet - a psychodynamic model incorporating the conscious and unconscious aspects of clinical practice. A creative take on this model is viewing this through the lens of 'Winnie-the-Pooh'.

I also supervise using the systemic Domains of Action model of three inter-linking circles, Action, Explanation and Aesthetics. Action relates to accountability and responsibility, explanation is the therapeutic relationship and aesthetics is about respectful and appropriate language underpinned by Codes of Ethics.

Key elements of my practice are: -

• Relational where the supervisory relationship between you and I are safety, trust, openness, courage and candour.

• Supervision needs to be something we both enjoy, where transformational learning takes place.

• I will be curious and interested in any 'take-aways' you get in each and every supervision session enabling a rich growing and developing practice.

• I also enjoy Ethical Dilemmas in how we respond to different situations and the positions we take moment-to-moment decision making.

In contacting me I offer a free half hour introductory 'meet and greet' session where we can begin to see if we are a good fit.

Following that I can forward my supervision contract for you to read and sign.

After 6 supervision sessions, I will review to see if supervision is meeting your needs.

I charge £60 per hour and £90 for 1.5 hours. You can pay online and on the day of the session

I request 48 hours working days notice for any cancellations