About helen
Additional Information
Helen is a therapeutic coach, counsellor and coach with a wealth of experience in helping people through trauma; whether from childhood or adulthood. She has the capacity to connect with and support her clients as they undertake their journey of increased self-awareness and personal growth.
Background
Helen gained much of her professional experience through working with teenagers in care and within the mental health field for 18 years. During this time she developed a greater understanding of how our emotional, mental, spiritual and physical needs relate to, and impact one another. She managed residential care homes and supported housing schemes designed to help people improve and integrate all aspects of their lives, from daily living skills to work, and relationships. Depression, anxiety, addiction, psychosis and OCD were, sadly, very common symptoms of the struggle many clients experienced, in a bid to cope with and try to fit in to expected "norms" of society today. Many of these illnesses were symptoms of difficult and traumatic upbringings. This led her to a desire to deepen her understanding of the causes of distress and anxiety, and several years after becoming a Reiki Master and Feng Shui Practitioner she trained in Trauma Therapy and EMDR (eye movement, desensitisation and reprocessing), which helps the body and mind release long-held trauma responses. Helen set up her own private practice, in Dorset, before forming Blackwood Consultants with her Co- Director, Joanna Dreher, in the city of London. It is specifically designed to support employee well-being through counselling and coaching techniques, as well as private clients. helen specialising in working with clients who had suffered from trauma and/or traumatic upbringings and helping people suffering with anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Over the last 20 years Helen has developed her spiritual understanding and experience and trained in yoga and meditation in the UK, India and Germany, encompassing subjects such as drawing, sacred dance and movements, and the study of the body and mind within its environment. Her other interests include interior design (she ran her own interior design and feng shui company), photography and art, and her knowledge and experience of these creative worlds helps her understanding and flexibility in her work with clients.
Beliefs
"I believe everyone has great potential, but yet when this is not fulfilled it can create a sense of dissatisfaction, frustration, anger, depression, anxiety or low-confidence. This can have a significant impact upon your ability to perform and succeed in the work environment. Training in a new model of integrated counselling and coaching has enabled me to work effectively with those who want to change either inner or outer aspects of their lives; whether they want to focus on aspects of their professional or private lives. "Changing a behaviour or developing a skill/aptitude will have a corresponding effect upon an inner thinking pattern or belief system. I have found that working on both levels produces a more effective and integrated change in a person. "I have trained in mediation and yoga in India, Germany and England, and use the techniques with clients when they find it helpful. Working in this way with the body and mind together has a direct and positive influence on our ability to maintain physical, emotional and mental health and helps induce a clarity of mind. "I am also a Practitioner of Feng Shui, which holds the same principles of the intimate relationship between the inner and outer worlds- the conscious and unconscious, and the world of quantum and molecular physics."
