Morrell Counselling

Morrell Counselling I am a fully trained counsellor and supervisor based in the village of Meltham just outside of Holmfirth. Please contact me if you have any queries.

Sometimes when going through a difficult time it can be easier to talk to someone who doesn't know you, won’t judge you or tell you what to do. The counselling relationship is confidential and gives you the space to say things you may not usually feel comfortable saying for fear of being judged or upsetting loved ones. You may not completely understand the way you are feeling, and you may find it useful having someone to guide you through an exploration of your feelings and thoughts. It is important for you as the client to feel safe, in a trusting, honest and supportive relationship with your counsellor. The strength of the relationship itself is essential for the counselling process and for this reason it is really important that you find the right counsellor for you. Counselling can help with: relationship problems, anxiety, depression, bereavement, low self esteem, eating disorders, self harming, work related worries, stress, trauma, divorce, poor health, anger. Counselling is not just about listening, or about giving advice. The counselling relationship provides a secure base from which you can explore difficult feelings, experiment with different ways of being and start to make changes or work towards goals. I started training as a counsellor at Leeds Metropolitan University where I completed the CertHE in Interpersonal and Counselling skills. I completed my training with the DiplomaHE in Therapeutic Counselling, also at Leeds Metropolitan. The core approach I work from is the Relational Approach which maintains that the relationship between client and counsellor is of key importance. I may use other tools or theories where I deem it may be of use in a session. I’ve found working creatively in particular has been beneficial with a number of different clients. I am a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and therefore I work to their ethical standards. I am working towards BACP accreditation. In addition to my private practice I have gained over 3 years experience from working at Bradford Counselling Services. A project in Bradford City Centre offering counselling for all ages and various issues. Other courses I have completed include but are not limited to: Bradford Bereavement Support training course, Transactional Analysis (TA101), Basic Awareness in Domestic Abuse, CAMHS Introduction to Children and Young People, Self Management Coaching for Long Term Health Conditions, Working with Problem Gamblers and Affected Others

What first springs to mind when someone mentions self-care practice? A bubble bath? A massage? An hour with a good book?...
19/11/2025

What first springs to mind when someone mentions self-care practice? A bubble bath? A massage? An hour with a good book? A run? Time with loved ones? All great suggestions for proactive self-care activity.

For me, setting boundaries is the most crucial component of self-care practice, and the thing that can be quite often left ignored.

While bubble baths and quiet time are wonderful, and can go a long way to nourishing us if used as part of our daily lives, true self-care quotes establishing clear limits, drawing a line around our energy, time and emotional space to prevent depletion and resentment. By saying “no” to things that drain you or violate your personal values, you are saying “yes” to your own well-being, preserving the inner resources you need to be able to show up fully, authentically and sustainably for yourself and the people you care about.

Counselling can be a part of your self-care practice. Spending 50 minutes on weekly basis, talking solely about ourselves with no need to worry about being judged and no fear of burdening the other person - is a rarity and something that doesn’t often happen in day to day life.

It’s important for us to take care of ourselves in order to be able to show up for others.

This Socrates quote came up in a session today. I couldn’t remember the exact wording so went searching for it. I think ...
07/11/2025

This Socrates quote came up in a session today. I couldn’t remember the exact wording so went searching for it.

I think one of the really important things for counsellors to acknowledge is that we won’t ever reach a status that means we know everything. For me it feels dangerous to ever think we can reach a point where we can deal with every single client with every single issue they bring due to experience or training. My personal belief is that humans are far more complex than that, we can never completely master working with humans in the way that we do. I learn something new from every single client I work with and expect that (and hope that!) to always be the case.

This is why supervision is SO important both for myself and the clients I work with. We are continually learning, be that through clients, through training or through our own life experiences.

That being said, it’s a funny thing to portray to prospective clients. Clients seek out counsellors for their help, assuming they have the tools and experience to help them. Generally speaking, I absolutely do! I do know lots of stuff! However I am continually checking in with my supervisor to make sure I am not missing anything, my own experience clouding my judgement, being IN IT with a client makes it impossible to be entirely objective, and even in supervision we can’t be entirely so as we always enter relationships with our own baggage. However having that additional degree of separation allows a supervisor to helicopter view over the work we are doing to ensure we are practising safely and ethically with the clients best interest at the forefront.

Sadly as this profession is not governed, the wide range of experiences people have in both and counselling and supervision is quite honestly shocking. I hear far too many stories and it’s incredibly disenchanting to be a part of that. I hope in whatever way I can, the passion I have about what I do, and the way that I do it reflectively and curiously with both clients and supervisees helps set the example to those who experience it of how things can be.

I spent a few years at the start of my career working with GamCare offering counselling sessions for Gambling addicts an...
05/11/2025

I spent a few years at the start of my career working with GamCare offering counselling sessions for Gambling addicts and the loved ones affected by gambling behaviour.

I’d never really considered working with this client group, it wasn’t something I’d ever engaged with myself, and at the time wasn’t something particularly prominent in the media. I remember learning that at the time if you presented at the GP with gambling addiction issues there was no pathway for them as to how to manage!

The work taught me lots about working with gambling addiction - I think a common assumption people make is that it’s all about money. I learnt that the gambling can be covering up far more than just money woes, it can be used as a distraction, a hope for the future, a boost of self worth or confidence, an excuse to socialise, a sense of status - addiction can cover up all sorts and counselling can help make sense of what’s feeling it for you.

If you or a loved one are effected by gambling and would like to seek some support please do get in touch.

When I have my own supervision, I spend some time writing out a list of all the clients and supervisees I have seen over...
03/11/2025

When I have my own supervision, I spend some time writing out a list of all the clients and supervisees I have seen over the previous month, and write a few sentences summarising the work with them. If anything particular has happened over the month that I feel I need to talk about I make sure to keep a note of it over the month so I don’t forget. I approach supervision with some fluidity in terms of who and what I talk about, I like to have the freedom to see what naturally comes out of the conversation with my Supervisor. I don’t have to nor have the time to cover everyone and everything every month, so each month I consider who I’ve talked about more or less over the recent appointments. If I notice there’s one client I’ve never brought up, I think it’s really important to talk about them, and potentially explore why I’ve been avoiding talking about them.

For me it’s really important to bring my client work - and for supervisees to do the same. Supervision isn’t there to catch you out, it’s there to help you reflect on your work continually, to ensure there’s nothing on the edge of your awareness that you aren’t noticing.

It’s not solely about your clients, and I’ve definitely had sessions over the years where I’ve spent the whole 1.5 hours talking about my own life, but it’s important that doesn’t happen every session.

As a supervisor part of my job is to protect your clients, and I can’t do that if you don’t share your work with them.

Not all supervisors will work like me, and that’s okay, and maybe that approach isn’t a one size fits all. People who want to be continually curious, reflect and understand the edges of their awareness will definitely benefit from the type of supervision I offer.

I’m having so much fun using AI to create content at the moment. I thought i’d experiment with making some colouring in ...
26/10/2025

I’m having so much fun using AI to create content at the moment. I thought i’d experiment with making some colouring in pages! I am a big fan of colouring in as a self-care practice, a way to switch off and reconnect with a creative little person within. I often say I’m full of creativity with little skill so colouring is the perfect way to get creative with no skill required! Let me know if you give it a try!

And on that note, it’s time for me to switch off from work for a week over half term. See you in November!

So we’ve had our first initial telephone chat and you’ve committed to booking in an appointment. Now what? Well, followi...
24/10/2025

So we’ve had our first initial telephone chat and you’ve committed to booking in an appointment. Now what? Well, following our phone call I will be sending you an email confirmation of our booking, some paperwork and the instructions of how to find my office/how to access your online appointment.

The paperwork will include a contract – which sets out the expectations and boundaries of our relationship and the work we will be doing together. It includes things like payment information, cancellation policy, limits to confidentiality and lots more (I’ll cover contracting in more detail in another post!) There will also be a basic details form for you to fill in so that I have a record of your contact details, and emergency contact details should I ever need them.

When you arrive at my door, you will have to press the buzzer, which I will answer to check who it is, and then come to meet you at the door. I will then walk you into my office where we will sit down together. I don’t have any formal assessment questions – much like my initial phone calls I like to just be two humans having a conversation and just seeing where it takes us. The general focus will be on adding more to the story of why you’re accessing counselling and what you’re hoping to get out of it.

Hopefully by the end of that first session we’ll both have a better idea of how counselling might be beneficial – but not always. Sometimes it takes a few sessions to get into what it’s all about and see how it might help. Some clients might be ready to hit the ground running, and some may take longer to trust and open up to talk about what they need to talk about.

Counselling is very much an individual process, and I might work completely differently with every single client, and no two sessions will look exactly alike. I am working with each individual; we’re collaborating together to create our relationship and the process of counselling together.



Thoughts are not facts! This is one of the most powerful mindset shifts you can make. Just because a thought pops into y...
23/10/2025

Thoughts are not facts!

This is one of the most powerful mindset shifts you can make. Just because a thought pops into your head, ‘I’m not good enough’ or ‘This will end in disaster’, does not mean it’s the absolute truth.

Our brains are thought-generating machines, and sometimes they spin up stories based on old fears, not current reality. We might think we’re helping ourselves thinking about the worst case scenario, but actually what we end up doing is focusing on the unlikely/unrealistic negative consequence rather than even considering the possibility of a positive outcome.

When you notice a negative thought, practice taking a gentle step back. Observe it without judgment, label it as a thought (e.g., “I am having the thought that I am overwhelmed”), and remind yourself that it is a piece of mental chatter, not a binding contract. This simple separation creates the space you need to choose a more helpful, fact-based perspective.

If many of your thoughts are unhelpful, negative or unrealistic, drop me a DM and I can send you a really helpful exercise to help identify these thoughts when they crop up and ways to challenge them to turn them around into more positive and realistic thinking. This is not a one size fits all solution, but it’s one I’ve sent out a lot over the years and I think it can be a great starting point.

It can be scary admitting we need help and then reaching out for some support. I thought it would be helpful to talk thr...
20/10/2025

It can be scary admitting we need help and then reaching out for some support. I thought it would be helpful to talk through step by step what enquiring about counselling (and supervision) would likely look like.

There are multiple ways to contact me – through directories, my website, on social media, through a direct email or over the phone. If you try call, and I am unable to pick up, please leave a voicemail – I won’t return calls unless a voicemail is left, so that I know who I am returning the call to and who I can disclose my identity to. I don’t want either of us to be in a position where I’ve let slip to someone that you have contacted me for counselling when you didn’t want them to know.

If you make contact, I will usually offer to book in for a free, brief telephone conversation so that you have an opportunity to ask any questions, get a sense of me and what sessions might like look like. It’s also important for me to assess the suitability of counselling in a general sense, and whether I feel from my experience and training that I would be equipped to help you.

I really encourage clients to shop around, have conversations with a few different people. Generally, I think we’re quite good at determining whether we will click with someone quite quickly, hence offering the initial contact call so that we can suss each other out! This is another reason I am trying to post more on social media, so that prospective clients and supervisees can get a better sense of me through what I post on here.

Once we have established that we feel we would be a good fit, we can look at booking in for a first appointment. I will talk more about this process in a future post!

Grounding techniques are simple yet powerful tools designed to help you reconnect with the present moment when you feel ...
20/10/2025

Grounding techniques are simple yet powerful tools designed to help you reconnect with the present moment when you feel overwhelmed, anxious or detached. Your mind might be racing, you might feel claustrophobic, you might be mid panic attack or you could be dissociating. These three mini tips can help your mind focus and bring you back into your body and into the present.

1. The 5-4-3-2-1 method
Name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing that you can taste.

2. Physical grounding
Taking your shoes off and pressing your feet firmly into the ground, holding a piece of ice or focusing on the sensation of your clothing against your skin.

3. Deep diaphragmatic breathing
Focus on slow, deep breaths that expand your belly.

You may have heard a counsellor mention they’re attending Supervision. What does this actually mean? Both trainee and tr...
16/10/2025

You may have heard a counsellor mention they’re attending Supervision. What does this actually mean?

Both trainee and trained counsellors should access Supervision routinely to ensure they are practicing effectively and ethically. Supervision promotes the safety and welfare of the supervisee, and the clients they are working with.

Supervision performs 3 main functions:
1. Formative - Developing the counsellors knowledge, skills and competence. This typically involves reflecting on interventions used in the counsellors sessions with their clients, deepening theoretical understanding and improving practical skills.
2. Normative - Ensuring the counsellor works to professionals standards and ethical guidelines in order to practice safely.
3. Restorative - Considering the personal well-being of the supervisee/counsellor. As counselling can be an emotionally demanding job, it’s important that counsellors feel they have a safe space to process their feelings, prevent burn out and practice self-care.

I’ve had fantastic supervision over the course of my career, and naively assumed that everyone else had experienced similar. When I started my Supervision training in 2017 I was shocked to hear some of the stories of other counsellors experiences. I sincerely hope I am able to offer my Supervisees a similar experience to what I have had.

Please get in touch if you’d be interested in accessing Supervision to support your counselling training or practice.

This book is a beautiful, vibrant guide to emotions that's perfect for kids. It offers practical tips to help little one...
14/10/2025

This book is a beautiful, vibrant guide to emotions that's perfect for kids. It offers practical tips to help little ones manage their feelings. A wonderful read for the tiny humans in your life 💕

How would I work on anxiety with a client in counselling? Well, there are a couple of different parts to dealing with an...
12/10/2025

How would I work on anxiety with a client in counselling?

Well, there are a couple of different parts to dealing with anxiety for me and the route we choose together might be dependent on multiple things.

If I’m working with a client via a service where they are only offered 6 sessions, I’m likely to be more proactive in looking at coping strategies for dealing with the anxiety e.g. relaxation techniques, mindfulness, challenging negative thinking patterns, exploring the idea of medication.

If I’m working with someone longer term, I do all of this, but I also help to look at the underpinnings of why the anxiety is there in the first place. I often give the following example:

Someone gets in touch noticing they have started to feel anxious in the workplace. Through exploring their history, the client expresses that they were bullied in high school. Now, the bullying isn’t directly causing the anxiety necessarily, but those early experiences have formed beliefs about self, worth, trust, relationships and all sorts that could well be impacting in the here and now in the workplace.

I believe making sense of the anxiety and the historical experiences that could be fuelling it, is a longer term strategy and helps to empower clients with knowledge and understanding of self as well as strategies to manage should they experience it again in the future.

Anxiety can be helpful to us, it helps us notice when something just isn’t quite right, and it can keep us safe. It can also stop us doing the things that we enjoy, and can feel completely overwhelming.

Counselling can be really helpful in learning to manage those symptoms but also understanding where it came from in the first place. Please get in touch if any of this resonates and you feel ready to start working on your anxiety.

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Morrell Counselling, Carlile Institute Business Centre, 54 Huddersfield Road
Holmfirth
HD94AG

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