Integrated Health Practice

Clare le Roux - Counselling

My name is Clare le Roux and I originally trained and worked in Further Education working with people who had learning disabilities, whose ages ranged from 16-65. I taught many subjects, such as literacy, numeracy life skills and cookery, to mention just a few! I had been doing this for ten years and then decided to train as a counsellor in 2004. Since then I have been working with young people in a school and have also been working for the Adult Learning Disabilities Abuse Team (A.L.D.A.T) within Devon Partnership NHS Trust. This is in a voluntary commitment for one day a week.

I also work privately at a college for student's with learning disabilities where I see students for one to one counselling. As well as using talking therapy, sometimes clients find it easier to express themselves through drawings or by working with a sand tray and figurines. A session lasts for fifty minutes and then arrangements are made to have further therapy. I also receive regular supervision for my work as well.

The areas of work that I have worked in are self-harm, behaviour, friendships, sexuality, why have I got a disability? bereavement,relationships, and anger management.

Counselling approach

When working with clients I use an Integrative Approach and Psychodynamic way of counselling. This allows for the therapeutic trust to develop over time. With this way of counselling clients bring whatever they wish to discuss, for example this could be bereavement, why have I got a disability?, or just needing that space to talk.

Sometimes clients find it difficult to say what they feel and they may prefer to write it down or express their thoughts through writing a poem. This can be done with the aid of a laptop computer. I also use a sand tray and figurines, which allows the client to decide what they would like to put in the tray. A client may like to have a discussion at the time, or if this is too painful, discussion may develop over time.