Rate Petina Walker

Hi,

My name is Petina.

I am an Advanced Integrative Therapeutic Counsellor and member of the BACP based in Devon, UK.

My work as a counsellor is hugely important to me. Helping clients to gain clarity provides me with an immense amount of job satisfaction. I am passionate about providing clients who need help with a quality and efficient service, actively listening to clients, providing them with a safe space to be heard. I never underestimate the life-changing and in many cases life-saving impact that counselling can and does have on my/our clients lives.

I practice several models of therapy. My work is primarily Solution Focused and Intuitive. I use Transactional Analysis (TA) as my underpinning framework. I may incorporate CBT approaches, NLP and Mindfulness techniques into my sessions.. My specialisms include working with addictions, anxiety, stress and anger management as well as relationship issues, in particular, codependency. I am especially interested in the link between stress and trauma, addiction and dependency issues with our Driver (TA) behaviours

I can help with Abuse, Addictions, Anxiety, Bereavement, Depression, Health related issues, Identity issues, Loss, Obsessions, Personal development, Post-traumatic stress, Relationships, Self esteem, Spirituality, Trauma, Women's issues

I have worked as a counsellor, trainer and drugs and alcohol professional for over 16 years. I have facilitated groups and treatment programmes as well as more recently triaging clients, completing assessments and providing 1:1 online interventions for service users, clients and families as a senior member on the Clinical Assessments & Brief Interventions Team of my local drugs and alcohol service.

I am currently taking a sabbatical to develop my private practice and invest time into my own personal and business develompment. It my intention to write a book based on my integrative approach to counselling for clients struggling with addiction and/or codependency.

I qualified in 2008 after training at The Iron Mill Institute, Exeter, UK. I am experienced, confident, and skilled in working with all the a-fore mentioned modalities, which means that I can tailor make the counselling interventions to best fit my clients needs at that time; which may vary from session to session. My work is client lead… therefore determined by what they bring to each session.

I am experienced in working with many other aspects of "life" that may cause a person to look for counselling support. I previously ran my own wellbeing centre in Exeter for 21 years, which achieved the Best Small Business Award for having established a reputation based on the provision of a high quality service and high standards of care for our clients. It was during this time that I developed a desire to help people on a deeper levelm and more importantly, make sure I was doing it properly.. I have a naturally empathic nature, with good listening skills and prioritise confidentiality above all else. I believe these attribues enable clients to open up and trust, feeling safe within that holding/somewhat nurturing invironment. During that time I naturelly supported many clients through a great deal of traumatic and challenging issues, including through the process of gender reassignment, cancer, divorce and significant loss.

As i started my counselling training, my interest in Stress management grew which lead me to travel to San Francisco to complete StressMap© training.

I am currently training in Hypnotherapy & Belief Coding®️.

The majority of my work continues to be online.

My first session

When i receive a referral, call or contact from a potential client expressing an interest in counselling, I firstly send my counselling information and a contract for counselling along with my privacy notice.

I provide clients with a unique number, which is used to password protect any potentially identifiable correspondence between us.

It is important to develop a counselling contract, to establish what the client wishes to achieve by engaging in counselling. "Beginning with the end in mind" (Steven Covey), helps establish direction and keep the work focused. Our first session will clarify the issues and desired outcome. I use monitoring tools at the start, and throughout my work, to monitor progress and swiftly identify any risks.

I do not encourage “counselling dependency”. I aim to complete the work in a timely manner, however, the value in having a “secure base” a place to feel safe to talk without judgement or time constraints, cannot be underestimated. I work hard to balance these two aspects of Talking Therapy in my own practice.