Andover
Counselling
& Therapeutic
Services
Andover Counselling & TherapeutiC Services
Welcome to Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services
Live the life you want.
Inclusive, Informed, Ethical.
Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services
Inclusion is incredibly important to us. Please chat to us if there are any questions left unanswered after reading our website or to suggest any adjustments that may help us to make your experience as positive as possible.
Mental health is as important as physical health however counselling is an unregulated profession which means people can call themselves ‘counsellors’ or ‘mental health coaches’ without completing substantial training. To be a member of a recognised counselling body (BACP, NCPS, UKCP) you have to have completed rigorous in person training including 100 hours of supervised clinical practice. As ethics are at the heart of everything we do, we are Registered Members of the BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) and are proud of our qualifications. Sadly, someone who is well-meaning but under qualified can do more harm than good.
Meeting You Where You Are At
Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services offers both 1:1 support and small group work. If you let us know your ideal times we will try our best to work around you, although for group work this may mean just being patient with us while we coordinate with fellow group members.
1:1
We offer face to face counselling in Andover but through the magic of technology we can offer online sessions wherever you are. All you need is the means to connect to the internet in a confidential setting so that you can freely discuss whatever it is that brings you to counselling.
Groups
Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services were inspired to run small group sessions to make accessing high quality support as affordable as possible. We would love to hear if there is an area you would like to see supported by our groups (Anxiety, Understanding Relationships, EOTAS Support, etc.) If there is enough demand we would love to make this happen for you.
Training & Corporate
Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services has years of experience working in schools. We can meet your school or establishment’s needs by providing short CPD training sessions, whole staff INSET or bespoke projects within smaller teams.
About Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services
Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services is run by Katie Manson. ACTS’s journey started during Covid when the theatres closed. Having worked as an actor/facilitator/youth theatre director/teacher, Katie had the opportunity to reflect on her career. Despite accolades for her productions, Katie realised it was the process not the performances that inspired her. In her theatre work Katie found the most joy in meeting new people and joining them on their transformative journey as they developed as performers and, more importantly, people. This is why Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services is, fittingly, known as ACTS. Although it was nearly called Cocoon Counselling, because Katie is committed to providing a safe place to support your transformation and enable you to step into the next stage of your life.
Fees
Groups will have a maximum of 6 participants to ensure everyone’s needs can be met. Each group session costs £15 and runs for 1 and a half hours.
A 1:1 session costs £45, each session is a therapeutic hour (50 mins). Prices increase annually at the start of the new financial year. We do not offer any concessions as sessions are already priced as low as possible for all our clients. Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services does however fund 1 free space, that is offered on a first come first served basis, to somebody who otherwise would not have access to therapy. If you would like to enable us to help more people within our community please get in touch about match funding or sponsorship.
Payment for all group or 1:1 sessions is required in advance in order to secure your space.
The words ‘counselling’ or ‘therapy’ can mean different things to different people: it may mean lying on a couch with someone saying very little; it may be something that is only for those in crisis or alternatively just having someone to have a chat with.
So what actually is counselling and what can I expect?
Our first session will be an opportunity to chat through our counselling contract, including what you can expect in terms of confidentiality to provide you with the safety to talk honestly about what has brought you to therapy. We will also use this session to make sure both client and counsellor have all the information they need to ensure we are the right service to meet your needs.
People don't just turn to counselling in times of crisis, although it can be a lifeline in difficult times. It can also be a great way to make sure your life is serving you the best it can. It can be about bringing a balance to all aspects of life including relationships. Counselling doesn’t have to be heavy, there can be laughter as well as tears. It is a safe place to bring whatever you are carrying; it is about meeting you where you are at and going on a journey together until you are ready to get to your destination: a life you are happy to be living.
Being nervous or apprehensive before your first session is perfectly normal, however, if you have any questions or would like any further information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch - it is our job to put you at ease as quickly as possible.
Horror film makers know that what we can’t see is what we fear the most. Counselling provides a safe relationship to help turn on the light and to work through whatever is there, together. It can bring you an increased awareness and with that awareness comes increased choices. It can help you to become the captain of your own ship. That may sound impossible right now but even going on that journey may be an enriching experience in itself. There may be some trickier stuff that you have to face along the way but counselling is about having someone that you trust to take that journey with you, until you are ready to set sail by yourself.
On your journey we may visit self improvement and self care, exploration of self, balance and overwhelm, fostering self compassion, anger and dysregulation, holding boundaries, freeing ourselves from shame, and trauma.
We may also explore anxiety, depression, living life as your authentic self, exploring identity, neurodivergence, bereavement, working creatively, reparative work, exploring self harm, suicidal ideation, freeing yourself from the past, recognising patterns or self sabotaging behaviour, relationships and social anxiety, working with which defence mechanisms may be at play: which are serving you well and which are holding you back from living the life you want.
You do not need to be ‘broken’ and you are certainly not weak for accessing counselling. People talk about coaching in a really positive light, it’s considered very forward thinking, enabling people to achieve their potential. Counselling has been described as ‘coaching with bells on!’
Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services offer an empathic approach: you will never be told off, shamed or made to feel not enough. We offer a user centred approach to meet you where you are at and enables you to step into the life you want and works for you, not the life you feel you should have.
Why Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services rather than a ‘free at the point of entry’ service like NHS or school counselling?
Unfortunately there is so much demand on these services that getting seen can take a long time and even then support can be limited to as little as 6 sessions. Sometimes that is all that is needed, especially if using CBT or more solution focused approaches, however those approaches do not work for everyone. That is why Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services offers an integrated approach. Having an integrative qualification means we have greater flexibility to take a collaborative approach to what works for you. Everybody is a unique individual and it is important that this is acknowledged, addressed and celebrated. It also means we have the freedom to work over a longer term if needed. We will never impose an ending before you have got all that you need from our work together.
Every person is an individual so there is no easy answer to that and there are so many variables such as how much work is happening outside of the therapeutic hour and what you want to achieve. A lifetime of trauma is unlikely to be resolved in just 6 weeks and it is unethical to attempt to do so. Working through a bereavement, while it may be very painful, may potentially be shorter term work; Cruse Bereavement (with whom I have trained) use a 6 week model. At Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services we do not want to put a deadline on your journey - when it ends depends on what comes out in our work and where you feel you are at. You will be at the forefront of deciding when to end your counselling journey, however we do ask all clients to have an ending session as endings are so important in life.
Legally we are not able to provide counselling to under 18’s who are adoptees or adults where adoption is the primary focus of the work.
Our qualifications are for working with people aged 11+. (Soon to be age 3+) It is very important, ethically, to have the right qualifications when working with mental health - someone who is not adequately qualified could do more harm than good.
Working ethically means we will only work using the skills in which we are qualified. For example, if you are looking for a counsellor who is trained using EMDR, a specific trauma processing technique, then we would signpost you to a more appropriately qualified specialist.
Experience
100 Clinical Placement hours working with adults at Andover Mind and CYP age 11+ in a school setting.
Relate CYP counsellor.
Working in education - Current role School Counsellor (Primary and Secondary) having previously had SEND and SEMH (Social, emotional, mental health) roles over many years.
Qualifications
Foundation Certificate (Level 2 and 3) in Counselling - Mindspace foundation
CPCAB, Level 4 in Therapeutic Counselling
TA101 - The Link Centre
CPCAB, Level 6, CYP Counselling to work with age 3+ (In training)
Creative
Drawing and Talking Practitioner
CPCAB Creative Counselling
Therapeutic use of grounding and stabilising tools, therapeutic ways to work with trauma, therapeutic use of symbols in the therapy room. Understanding Chronic Pain. Creative interventions using cards, images and photographs, stories, characters and fairytales, art and colour in the therapy room, nesting dolls, creative interventions using clay in the therapy room and creative interventions using sand in the therapy room
ISA International Sandstory Association - Sandstory Therapy Taster Day
Counselling World CPCAB - Walk and Talk Therapy
Counselling Tutor
Online & Telephone Counselling
Suicide and Safeguarding
Safeguarding Level 3 Children & Adults at Risk
Suicide Awareness Training - Zero Suicide Alliance
Child Sexual Abuse Hope for Healing, Dealing with Distress: Working with Suicide and Self-harm, Trauma and the Body: Dissociation and Somatisation
Dissociation & DID: The Fundamentals - Carolyn Spring
Hampshire Safeguarding Children Partnership courses:
An Introduction to Harmful Sexual Behaviour, Introduction to the Impact of Domestic Abuse, Supporting Children of Substance Misusing Parents, Introduction to Child and Adolescent to Parent Violence, Suicide Prevention Awareness, Safeguarding Adolescence, An Introduction to Sexual Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse Strategy and Multiagency Toolkit launch, Coercive Control Awareness, An Introduction to Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder.
PESI UK courses:
Embracing Suicidal Parts: Using IFS to Heal Wounded Parts
Crisis Planning with Youth and Teens
MindEd E-learning for NHS Health Education England courses:
Suicide and Self-harm Prevention for Schools, Self-harm and Risky Behaviour, Safeguarding, The Mental Health Act, Counselling in Secondary Schools, Counselling in Schools, Record Keeping, Data Protection and Access to Records, What is Assessment?, Contracting, Using Outcome Measures, Introducing Creative and Symbolic Methods, We Need to Talk About Suicide.
Grassroots Suicide Prevention - Hampshire County Council Suicide First Aid
Conscious Connections -Using DBT skills to reduce and prevent self harm
BACP: Good Practice - Exploring Suicidal Risk with Clients, Ethical Framework Review, Working with Complex PTSD
BACP & Open University How To Do Counselling Online
Bereavement
Bereavement Support Foundation Course (NCS) support skills module, Online Telephone Support Skills, Working with Clients Online, Trauma Awareness, Self-care.
SANDS - Supporting Families through Pregnancy Loss and the Death of a Baby.
Menopause
Working with the Menopause in Therapy - Brighton Therapy Partnership
CYP (Children & Young People)
CATT (Children's Accelerated Trauma Technique)
Mental Health Champion foundation course - Place2Be
Licensed Thrive Practitioner
Child Psychology Diploma, Level 3 - New Skills Academy
Creative Education, Dr Pooky Knightsmith courses:
Spot the Warning Signs of Poor Mental Health. Supporting Students who Self-harm. Simple Self-soothe Strategies. De-escalation: What Is It and How Do I Do It? Suicide: How to Help during Crisis Moments. How Can Schools and Colleges Support Students who are Gender Variant? Anxiety: Helping Teens to Support Themselves. Help Anxious Children Feel Calm & in Control. Navigating Frenemies, Cliques and Bants. Supporting Children with Friendship Issues. Spot and Support Autism. How to be your School’s Autistic Champion. Taking a Whole School Trauma Informed Approach. Spot and Support Attachment Disorder. Spot and Support Dyspraxia. Spot and support Dyslexia. Ensuring a Smooth Transition.
How to run Lego Therapy Interventions. The Contented Child.
Relate Training
Domestic Abuse, Awareness, Initial assessment and responding to, Safeguarding adults & children, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, Mental Health: Awareness, Suicidal Risk and Support
Neurodiversity
Sensory Processing with GriffinOT - Level 1
Understanding Autism - Open University & Autism Hampshire
Barnardos - Cygnet and The Parent Factor in ADHD courses
Disordered Eating
BEAT - School Professionals Online Training (SPOT)
Get in touch
In our work together, it is very important we respect what works for you and this includes how you choose to make initial contact.
Talk or text: 07442363824
How Would You Like Us To Contact You? - Talk, Text or Email.
So the next step is you contact Andover Counselling & Therapeutic Services to let us know what service you are interested in. We will contact you back via the communication method that works best for you, if this is different to how you made initial contact please do let us know. We will then let you know if there is space, what availability we currently have and, if there isn’t a time that works for you, offer you a space on our waiting list.
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