Counselling & Therapy Online and in Gretna

Perhaps you understand yourself very well - yet something still hasn't changed

Many of the women who find me have already done a great deal of thinking about themselves and their lives.

Some have had counselling or therapy before. Some have read extensively, trained professionally or worked on themselves for years.

They understand why they feel as they do.

And yet something remains.

A relationship keeps hurting.

Anxiety continues to take up too much space.

Something that happened years ago still affects life now.

You keep finding yourself responsible for everybody else.

You know how to function, achieve, care, organise and keep going - but somewhere along the way, you may have lost touch with what you need, want or feel.

Sometimes women arrive knowing exactly what they want to explore.

Sometimes all they know is:

"I can't keep doing this".

Both are enough.

The women who find me

Many of the women I work with are extraordinarily capable, although they don't necessarily experience themselves that way when we first meet.

They are often the person other people depend upon.

Some have survived extraordinarily difficult things and simply carried on.

Some have learned to adapt themselves beautifully to other people's needs.

Some are thoughtful, sensitive and highly perceptive, yet have spent years believing those qualities are somehow a problem.

And some arrive believing there is something fundamentally wrong with them.

I am interested not only in what has happened to you, but in the person who has been living through it.

Trauma and the things women bring

Trauma has been a significant part of my therapeutic work for many years.

Sometimes a woman knows that what she has lived through was traumatic. Sometimes she comes because she is anxious, overwhelmed, struggling in relationships or exhausted from constantly taking care of other people, without necessarily thinking of herself as someone affected by trauma.

I work with:

Anxiety, panic and overwhelm
Childhood trauma, abuse and sexual abuse
Sexual trauma
Difficult, controlling or harmful relationships
Family difficulties and estrangement
Depression and low mood
Shame, low self-worth and self-criticism
Difficulty with boundaries or saying no
Grief, loss and significant life changes
Feeling responsible for everybody else
Feeling disconnected from yourself or your body
Patterns that continue despite understanding where they came from

You may recognise yourself here, or what brings you may be entirely different.

You don't need a diagnosis or a label, and you don't need to decide whether what happened to you was “bad enough” to be called trauma.

We can begin with what is happening for you now.

When understanding hasn't been enough

Understanding something and being free of it are not always the same thing.

You can know exactly where a pattern came from and still find yourself repeating it.

You can know that you're allowed to say no and discover that your whole body reacts when you try.

You can understand intellectually that something wasn't your fault while still carrying shame.

This doesn't mean you have failed at therapy.

Sometimes there is simply somewhere further to go.

This is work I am passionate about.

Working with me

I don't need you to package your experience neatly for me.

You don't need to protect me from strong feelings or make what happened sound less serious.

You don't need to become quieter, nicer, less angry, less emotional or less complicated in order for us to work together.

I will listen.

I will think with you.

I will notice things and be curious with you about what happens between us as well as what happens elsewhere in your life.

And I will take you seriously.

Conversation is at the heart of my work.

My experience

I have worked therapeutically with people for 27 years. I became a BACP Accredited counsellor in 2005.

My professional life has included extensive work within primary and secondary healthcare and GP practices, alongside many years in independent practice.

My original counselling qualification was Client Centred followed by years of further psychotherapy training, professional development and supervision.

I am a supervisor and have mentored practitioners with their therapeutic work and professional development.

After nearly three decades, I don't believe one therapeutic model can tell me everything I need to know about the woman sitting in front of me.

My experience informs our work.

It doesn't replace my curiosity about you.

If you've had therapy before

Perhaps therapy helped enormously and you're ready to go somewhere further.

Perhaps it didn't help enough.

Perhaps you felt misunderstood, managed or that you had to become a particular kind of client.

You don't have to arrive trusting me.

Trust develops through what actually happens between us.

You can disagree with me.

You can tell me when something doesn't feel right.

And if I misunderstand you, I want to know.

You are not required to become a good client.

Online and in-person

Most of my work is online via Zoom, and I work with women throughout the UK.

I also see women in person from my private studio in Gretna, Dumfries and Galloway.

Women travel to work with me from Cumbria and the Scottish Borders as well as further afield.

Fees

My standard fee is £90 for a 60-minute session.

I know that £90 is not affordable for everyone.

I keep some space in my practice for women who would otherwise be unable to access therapy with me, and I'm happy to have an honest conversation about what is financially possible.

Please feel free to ask when you contact me.

Thinking about beginning?

Below is a form you can fill out and send to me.
You don't need to write your life story or know exactly what you need before contacting me.
Simply reach out.

Please feel free to tell me a little about what has brought you here, if you wish.

I have appointments available for new clients right now.

You can contact me directly using the form below.

I will receive your message by email and reply to you personally.

Be sure to add my email to your safe contacts so you receive my reply.

kas@kassimartin.com

Or call / text:
07876222790