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Counselling

Counselling

Making the journey through higher education can be hard sometimes. So if you ever feel like you need a bit of extra support, we can offer professional therapy and help away from your day-to-day environment. It’s all confidential, and completely free too.

Counselling can help with:

  • Stress, Depression and/or Anxiety and other mental health conditions
  • A distressing physical health condition 
  • Difficulties with a bereavement process (due to the death of a friend/family member/pet/significant other)
  • A challenging life event, for example, a relationship breakdown or work stress
  • Challenging feelings or emotions, such as anger or low self confidence
  • Individuals who want to explore their identity, for example, sexual/gender identity, cultural identity

What Counselling does not do:

  • Prescribe medication
  • Diagnose conditions
  • Give advice or tell someone what to do

Whatever you’re worried about, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re here for you.

Two holding hands
young adults sitting together in circle talking

Our Counselling Service is by referral appointments only. If you’d like to refer yourself for Counselling then please fill out our online referral form using this link. The form will take approximately 10 minutes to complete. We are currently offering appointments online (which includes both video and telephone) and face to face (both at our Uxbridge and High Wycombe campus).

Once we have received your online referral, we will put you on our assessment waiting list and as soon as an appointment with one of our counsellors becomes available we will be in contact. Most people are offered an appointment within 4 weeks, but it may be longer depending on how busy the service is.

If you have any questions or any problems with the form then please email us or you can visit us at the High Wycombe Campus in N1.12G and we will do our best to assist you.

Whilst you wait for an appointment, if you’re in emotional distress or struggling to cope and need immediate support, these organisations offer a 24/7 service:

  • Togetherall - Use your BNU student email to register.
  • Samaritans - Phone free on 116 123 or email: jo@samaritans.org
  • Call 111 to access the NHS Mental Health Line
  • Text SHOUT to 85258 for Mental Health Support
  • Text HECTOR to 85258 for Suicidal Thoughts/Ideation Support
  • Or call 999 if you are in immediate danger

Emergency Services

Remember, in an emergency call 999 – if you need to reach the emergency services for any other purpose, please use the numbers below.

General Counselling

  • Counselling Directory: Through the Counselling Directory, you can find private counsellors and psychotherapists near you, as well as information and articles on the different types of counselling available, and articles around specific topics including depression, anxiety, abuse and relationship issues.
  • Chiltern Samaritans: Chiltern Samaritans is a 24-hour confidential emotional support for anyone in crisis. Call the national 24-hour helpline: 08457 909 090.
  • Marlow Pastoral Foundation: Counselling around relationship difficulties, sexual and physical abuse, mental health, bereavement and other emotional problems. Call the 01494 440199 number for ‘South Bucks Counselling’. Office hours are Monday to Friday 9am-9pm.

General Advice and Support

  • Citizens Advice Bureau: Visit the Citizens Advice Bureau website or call 01494 449 805.
  • Youth Enquiry Service: Information, advice, counselling and support for young people including advice about rights, accommodation, money problems, relationships and pregnancy. There is a sexual health service here and you can access the accommodation register and rent deposit guarantee scheme (for people aged 18+). Call 01494 437373.

Mental Health Support

Sexual Health and Abuse Support

Addictions

Bereavement

LGBT Support and Advice

  • Stonewall - The lesbian, gay and bisexual charity with advice on coming out, discrimination, rights, and support networks Call the information line on 08000 50 20 20 (Mon-Fri 9:30am to 5:30pm)

Other support services

  • Eating Disorders Association
  • B-Rat provides a helpline for adults and young people, online support and a UK wide network of self-help groups to help people beat their eating disorders. Call B-Eat for adults on 0845 634 1414
  • Victim Support - Support and Advice for any victim of a crime, call 0845 30 30 900

Counsellors are allocated on the basis of the availability you provided in your referral form, once we have an available appointment we will offer you a counselling assessment. The aim of the counselling assessment is for your counsellor to get an overview of you; your reasons for counselling and generally to get to know a little more about you and how we may be able to help you. We are currently piloting new ways of delivering counselling, as we are mindful that having one type of counselling approach may not benefit all our client’s need. Our objective is to reduce waiting times for students who have referred themselves for counselling support, and to work more efficiently with the different needs of students accessing our service in order to empower and better support them.

Once you have attended a Counselling assessment with us, the two ways we will be delivering Counselling is:

One session at a time counselling: Here a client and their counsellor will focus on finding a solution to a problem. It involves exploring any emotional difficulties the client brings and developing an individually tailored action plan to respond to them. The client will then go away and work through this plan. Clients have the option to re-refer themselves back to their counsellor a minimum of four weeks later, after working through their action plan, if they feel they need further support. 

Or

Six session block counselling: Here we work with a single block of six allocated sessions to explore any emotional difficulties a client is presently facing.

It is worth noting that both approaches aim to help alleviate emotional difficulties; increase your self-awareness and to empower you.

We would always encourage you to also let your GP know the difficulties you are experiencing in case they are able to offer further support.

All counselling sessions last for 50 minutes, please arrive on time as your counsellor will be working to an appointment system, so if you arrive late your session will have to be cut short. If you can’t keep an appointment please give us at least 24 hours’ notice if possible, so that someone else can have that appointment time. If you don’t let us know then we will count the missed session as a full session, and you may have to wait for another one depending on availability.

  • High Wycombe Campus: Monday to Friday: 9.15am, 10.30am, 11.30am, 2pm and 3pm.
  • Uxbridge Campus (room 0.10): Mondays to Friday: 9:15am, 10:30am, 11:30am 2pm and 3pm.

Discussions in sessions will be kept confidential but our Counsellors do have a legal limitation to disclose any information where you or other people are at immediate risk or danger. If this situation ever arises then your Counsellor will talk through everything with you prior to any disclosures.

Confidentiality is key to the counselling process, the information you give us in your initial referral form will be used to make sure we run the Counselling Service as efficiently as possible. We make brief notes at the end of each session which remain confidential and stored securely.

All counsellors have a supervisor who monitors the quality of their work, supervision is carried out in a confidential way, and we do everything to make sure you receive the best possible professional care at all times.

The Counselling Service team consists of:

  • Accredited Counsellors
  • Qualified Counsellors and Psychotherapists
  • Low Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Therapists
Contact us

If you would like to make an appointment you can contact us in the following ways:

  • Come to us directly on the 1st floor of the North Building (N1.12) on our High Wycombe campus or on our Uxbridge campus (room 0.10).
  • Phone: 01494 605 018
  • Email: counselling@bnu.ac.uk