We Catch Up With Heidi Mercer and Lucy Cunningham from the Oxford Listening Collective…
We are delighted to introduce ourselves as the newest practitioners at Summertown Clinic. We are Heidi Mercer and Lucy Cunningham, counsellors in Summertown Clinic’s growing talking therapy services. Both of us feel especially pleased to have joined a team which takes a holistic view of health, as it is our view that good mental health and physical wellbeing are strongly interlinked.
How can our counselling help?
Counselling is talking therapy. A counselling session offers an opportunity to stop and think without distraction. A counsellor listens to you, without judgement, without offering advice, and together you try to find a way of working through your struggles. It is something people usually seek out when they are grappling with emotional difficulties that are affecting their general wellbeing.
Counsellors can’t fix anything, but they can help you to gain understanding and perspective. Untangling and making sense of complicated and often conflicting emotions can make you better able to heal, to make choices, set boundaries, and feel more in control of your life.
What happens in a counselling session?
Before booking an appointment, we will talk to you to find out what you would like to gain from counselling. If appropriate, we will then arrange an initial consultation which is a chance for you to explain in more depth what has brought you to counselling, to check that we feel we will work well together and a time to start drawing out the issues that we may need to focus on.
We then agree how many sessions we will start with and arrange to review our work on a regular basis. Appointments last for 50 minutes and most people come to counselling weekly. Many start with quite short term work of 6-12 sessions, but others know from the start that they will want a much longer term commitment. We can extend or cut short the duration of sessions as needed.
Our special interests
Both counsellors work with many conditions which cause distress. Heidi works with adults and also has a special interest in working with children and young people. Lucy works with age 16+ and has a particular interest in working with people who are dealing with long term health conditions, and also the impacts of cancer on mental health. We work closely together work as part of Oxford Listening Collective, a group of counsellors with shared values and training.
How to book
Please contact Summertown Clinic, who will pass your details to us and we will contact you to arrange a chat to start with. Alternatively, you contact us via https://oxfordlisteningcollective.co.uk
Please feel free to contact us if you’ve got any questions about any of the services we offer through Summertown Clinic on 01865 558561, or our contact page.
