Philip Hardy

I will be available to offer face-to-face and online couselling sessions from The Isle of Lewis from Monday, December 14. My working days are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. My working hours are flexible to suit client availability where I can accommodate them ranging between 8:30 to 19:00.

I am an experienced, fully qualified, integrative counsellor offering specialist counselling for people experiencing, or who have experienced, anxiety and depression, low mood, trauma, current or historical abuse, rape and sexual violence, bereavement, relationship issues, changes of life, coping with illness, identity anxiety and much more. 

Many people I work with explain to me how isolating and life-restricting it has been to hold and try to cope with terribly painful experiences, associated emotions and feelings that for many reasons they have not felt safe enough to share with others. Others have struggled to find the source of their pain in a vague and confusing internal world. In my work with others, respect, care and a sense of privilege in respect to their experiences, feelings, beliefs, values, thoughts and emotions is, I feel, the very least I can offer. The work of counselling is at its best a humbling experience for practitioners. Feedback from dozens of clients about my practice is that they felt "truly seen and heard" sometimes for the first time ever. I offer kindness, regard for others and my genuine self. People often worry that counsellors may judge them. Judgement to me is always a barrier to true understanding. What would be the value of me judging? How could I hear and understand them fully if I had decided what was "right or wrong" from my own perspective? There is only "action and consequence"  "rather than right or wrong". Me truly trying to hear and understand a person without judgment is crucial to that person seeing their own experience more clearly. The ultimate goal to me is to help others find their true sense of self, away from what has happened to them, and to help unlock choice for them to define their own meaning around their life experiences. Many people find they define themselves and their worth through what has happened to them and can lose their true self and worth on the way. I am educated to a high standard across many theories and methods of psychological intervention, from psychodynamic, person-centred, transactional analysis to cognitive behaviour therapy and psycho education. However, integrating these approaches is only ever useful to help us understand your own human experiences more clearly and only serve to help us understand what is already there.

I offer a first session for free. In this session we will assess if counselling is the correct approach for you and take into account any adjustments we need to take into account or further referrals that may be appropriate. We will look at the contract of work together and ensure you fully understand it and are able to ask questions about it or clarifications.