Alison Clare Psychotherapy and Counselling

I am a fully registered psychotherapist with the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)

I am also a member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP)


My interest in understanding how people live and make sense of their lives led me to study psychology as a first degree in 1972.
I then moved into teaching and careers guidance work with young people.
At that time I also worked for an organisation providing residential holidays for children.
I became involved in providing interpersonal training for the staff and learnt an enormous amount about communication and relating to others.
I completed my first counselling training in 1987 and from this established a small private practice in Rochdale where I then lived. I also trained as a facilitator for the Parent Network - running many groups for parents.
I moved to Hampshire in 1991 and worked in higher education as a careers and personal counsellor. I engaged in further training and gained a Diploma in Facilitation At this time I facilitated many self development groups - including anger management, assertiveness, emotional literacy, self esteem and stress management. I re-established my private counselling practice in 1996 as well as counselling in higher eduaction and later in a sixth form college.
I have a Masters degree in Psychotherapy. This involved a further five years of training looking in depth at understanding the human condition from various view points and in deepening and broadening my ways of working with people. This continues today.

My particular present interest is in the recent neuroscientific findings about how the brain functions in response to trauma and the implications of these findings in working with people with the long term affects of trauma.
I am fully trained in EMDR - a well recognised and effective method of working with trauma.
I have also completed the SEe FaR CBT training to work with anxiety,trauma and PTSD