Welcome to Cygnet Counselling

Helena Arthur DipHE, MBACP

You may be feeling anxious about reaching out to someone with your concerns and challenges. It takes courage to make that initial contact and I am well aware of that so my aim is to make the process as easy as possible for you. If you email me we can arrange an initial meeting to talk about what you want to get out of counselling, I will explain how it works and we can discuss how often you would like to meet i.e. weekly or fortnightly. This will help us decide whether to meet up for a second session and start counselling together.

Life can be complicated sometimes and seem difficult to navigate. We all have challenges that we may be facing now, or have faced in the past and there is great value in not having to face those challenges alone. I consider it a great privilege to be part of my client’s journey towards self-fulfillment and provide a warm, welcoming and safe environment for anyone who would like the space to talk.

As a counsellor, I aim to come alongside my clients and form an alliance that makes it possible to explore thoughts, feelings, challenges and the desire to gain insight into one’s behaviour. Counselling can be a challenging process in itself and it takes courage to trust another person with your inner world. But ultimately it can be very rewarding and liberating; providing insight into behaviour and removing the blockages to change.

I look forward to hearing from you.

What is Counselling?

Sometimes we just need to tell another person what we are experiencing in our lives, whether it is right now only or also what we went through in the past. It can be difficult to gain a perspective on this that helps us to make sense of it and be able to function without unwanted and troubling thoughts, feelings and memories getting in the way.

A counsellor is someone who offers their compassionate presence which makes it possible for us to regulate the intensity of our distress or anxiety while listening as we tell our story and share what’s going on inside our heads and body. A counsellor can use psychoeducation to explain the process of anxiety for instance, what is going on in your body when you are anxious and what helps to dial it down. A counsellor is someone who has studied the theory behind what causes human distress for many years and has been through the process themselves with their own counsellor and has been changed by it.

Training, Qualifications & Experience

DipHE Integrative Counselling Roehampton University
Master Practitioner Skills in Eating Disorders – National Centre for Eating Disorders
Seven years working in the NHS as part of the Nursing Team
Counsellor with Heart and Mind London
Counsellor with 96 Harley Street Ltd
Honorary Counsellor with Women and Girl’s Network at Ealing Rape Crisis Centre
Continuing Professional Development Training including Trauma, Sexual Abuse, Sandtray Therapy, Gestalt, Bereavement Counselling, Psychosomatic Therapy (the effect of trauma on the body), Gender Violence, Health Coaching, Wellness

Member Organisation

Accredited Register Membership

Areas of Counselling I Deal With

Therapies Offered

Why Cygnet Counselling, What’s the Reason for the Name?

As a young child, I remember hearing the song and the story about The Ugly Duckling which was about a baby swan (cygnet) who grows up with ducks instead of it’s true parents so he thinks that he is also a duck. But in comparison to the yellow ducklings, he is teased and rejected for being scruffy and different due to his fluffy grey feathers and way of walking. He is lonely and feels inadequate and lives in social isolation. He sees some swans flying past one day and thinks that they are beautiful and regal. After a few bad experiences he finally grows up and one day he sees some swans in the water and doesn’t dare to talk to them. He looks in the water and is startled to see that he now looks just like them! The other swans welcome him as one of their own and he finds companionship and status with them. So far so happy ending.

What struck me about this story is that we can often be very unaware of our own beauty and worth due to adverse experiences and a lack of validation for just being ourselves. We take on board lots of messages through our lives that can leave us feeling negative towards ourselves which makes it hard to practise self-care. One of the purposes of counselling is something called self-actualisation which is about becoming the best version of ourselves we can be and having the freedom to be authentic and congruent – happy with who we are and open and honest with others about that.

The process of having counselling can be very liberating and lead to a better quality of life, increased health and self-esteem.