Elena is a BACP registered Person Centred therapist, working with couples and individuals to offer both short term and open-ended therapy.
Elena’s approach is person-centred and humanistic, holding space for a therapeutic style that feels simple, warm and optimistic. She offers her clients active listening, deep empathy, humour and non-judgemental understanding. At the heart of her practice lies the conviction that the only expert on your circumstances is you.
Elena’s specialism is supporting individuals who experience difficulties related to fertility, birth or early parenthood and she is continually engaged with training and research in this area. Elena is experienced working with a wide variety of issues, including:
Infertility
Pregnancy or baby loss
Birth trauma
Postnatal depression
Experience of NICU
Foetal or infant diagnosis
Parents of children with disabilities or Special Educational Needs (SEN)
Elena also supports clients who are facing other difficulties, not related to pregnancy, such as bereavement, trauma, life transitions, depression, anxiety or chronic stress.
TRAINING, REGISTRATION AND QUALIFICATIONS
- Registered member of the BACP
- Registered member of the BICP (British Infertility Counselling Association)
- Post-graduate Diploma in Person Centred Counselling, The Norwich Centre.
- Certificate in Infertility in Couples Therapy, Institute of Couples Therapy.
- Certificate in Birth Trauma, Make Birth Better.
- Certificate in Couples Therapy, Human Givens.
How can Elena help you?
Birth Trauma
New parents encounter an array of challenges at the best of times. When things don’t go as expected at birth, it can be difficult, or even impossible, to carry on as normal.
Elena has experience supporting individuals and couples who have faced complications related to birth or early parenthood, including:
- A traumatic birth
- Referral to Foetal Medical Uni
- Experience of NICU
- Unexpected Pre-term birth
- Health concerns for mum and baby
- Challenges with bonding post birth
Elena holds a certificate in Birth Trauma from Make Birth Better and continue to engage in trauma related training regularly.
Infertility
We all grow up with ideas of what it will mean to be a parent and how it will feel to experience pregnancy and birth. It can be profoundly disorientating and incredibly distressing when things don’t unfold as we expect.
The fertility journey can be a time of immense strain, sadness and uncertainty. Women and their partners are faced with endless questions, decisions, and invasive procedures. Many feel like it's just not fair that having babies seems to come so easily to 'everyone else’.
Elena has experience working with individuals who are both undergoing and have undergone fertility treatment. Counselling can help reduce isolation and provide another level of support during this difficult time. It can also provide the space needed to reflect once treatment is finished. It is a space in which to hold all the worries, grief, sorrow, shame or anger the fertility journey might through up.
Postnatal Mental Health
Feeling isolated, anxious, tearful, angry, guilty, ashamed, depressed… the list could go on. The postnatal period often comes with a whole host of complex and confusing emotions. Becoming a parent is an enormous life change and getting used to it can often take time for both women and men.
Weekly counselling sessions can be a big support for both individuals and couples settling into the ‘new normal’ that comes with the birth of a child. Counselling gives you space to talk freely. It can help to have a space to express all those less palatable feelings and thoughts that come with early parenthood without worrying about judgement or criticism.
It may seem like everyone has an opinion about how you should parent, what you must be feeling like or what your baby needs. As a counsellor, Elena will be focussed on you: What do you need now? What might help a little? What feelings need to be expressed that you feel unable to voice in other spaces?
Elena is experienced working with clients who have had support from NHS perinatal mental health teams. She has also undertaken additional training in perinatal mental health with Make Birth Better.