How I Can Help

Maybe you are struggling with life challenges but feeling hesitant or daunted about reaching out for support and wonder whether anxiety, low mood, anger, grief or rumination over past events is just something that you must learn to live with. Maybe a loss or a bereavement has left you wondering who you are now, leaving you feeling overwhelmed or ‘stuck’.

Bereavement can lead to a kind of mental and emotional time travel.   Perhaps you feel pulled towards a past that is out of your control and holds lots of ‘what ifs’ and regrets. You may also feel dragged towards a future that hasn’t happened yet and is unknown, unplanned and frightening.

You might be worried that your grief is too much for your loved ones to handle, so you tend to keep it to yourself. Or maybe you feel bad about the strength of your feelings and tell yourself that ‘others have it worse’, therefore minimizing or trivialising your own grief.

With a breadth of experience, including counselling for bereavement, and holding dual qualifications in therapeutic counselling and mindfulness, I can help you to feel contained and supported, and therefore able to safely share and explore your grief without feeling the need to edit your thoughts and feelings.

All your ways to cope are in the here and now. Working with me can help you become more mindfully aware, and able to remain safely present more often. You will learn to be less overwhelmingly hooked into the past or the future and feel more emotionally regulated. This can enable you to build resilience over time, helping you to face your loss without losing yourself in what has happened.

Whether it’s grief and loss, or navigating life’s other obstacles, by working with me you can learn to give yourself permission to talk freely and focus on yourself, validate and understand your feelings, and explore ways to cope. I will help you to explore different perspectives, choices and ways of being.

Counselling in Macclesfield

About Me

Hello. My name is Helen (She/her)

My experience includes working as a counsellor at two cancer centres, where I have helped people with anxiety, depression, grief, loss, anticipatory loss, bereavement, cancer, living with suicide in the family, adverse childhood experiences, low self-esteem and living with life-limiting illness.

Other areas of counselling I have worked with include: alcohol, identity issues, family issues, health anxiety, neurodivergence, affairs and betrayal, and work-related stress.

I offer a safe, confidential space for people aged 18+ to engage in face-to-face counselling in Macclesfield, Cheshire. I can also offer online counselling. I also offer sessions to student counsellors.

I am a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and I adhere to their Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions.

I am an accredited member of the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (MNCPS Acc.).

I have an enhanced disclosure check (DBS).

My qualifications include:

  • Level 4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling
  • Bereavement Specialist Training
  • Certificate in Mindfulness Practice and Teaching
  • PGCE in Inner City Teaching

Testimonial from a recent client:

I would not hesitate in suggesting to anyone who is experiencing emotional difficulties that they seek help with Helen. She is extremely professional, but also warm and compassionate. She is attentive and insightful and I felt safe and at ease in sharing my thoughts and feelings with her. She has excellent communication skills and has helped me to face and overcome the challenges I was experiencing following a bereavement.   L.I (2025)

       

Helen Dewhurst Counseller Macclesfield Cheshire

Counselling in Macclesfield Cheshire

Approach

I work from a strong person-centred foundation, while also integrating elements of cognitive behavioural therapy, transactional analysis, mindfulness techniques and creative approaches, and I am also influenced by polyvagal theory.

A person-centred approach believes that everyone is capable of finding personal meaning,
purpose and fulfilment in life.

To help you progress towards this, the counsellor will offer core conditions as part of the
therapeutic relationship. These conditions are:

  • empathic understanding,
  • accepting and valuing you unconditionally,
  • being honest, transparent and genuine themselves.

The counsellor will deeply value and respect you and consider you to be the expert on your
own life and future. They will never tell you what to do, but instead will encourage you to
explore your own issues, whilst accompanying you if you choose to make changes. The work
is done at your own pace and according to your own readiness.

CBT is a talking therapy that works with ‘here and now’ issues. It is a technique for concentrating on the cognitive processes responsible for emotion and behaviour.

As you and your counsellor work collaboratively towards a deeper understanding of your thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes, CBT techniques can help to change your behaviour and attitudes, with the aim of enabling you to control and decrease your negative emotions.

TA looks at how we speak, communicate and interact with other people, and at the unhelpful unconscious roles and ‘games’ we sometimes play.

It is based on the theory that everyone has three ego states (parent, adult and child) that were shaped during the early years of life and stored unconsciously. These, and other fundamental concepts, allow you and the counsellor to examine together how you may be interacting with other people and how you may view yourself. By bringing this into awareness, you can begin to realise your own value and worth, start to experience autonomy, and decide how changes might result in a healthier, more balanced approach to life.

Mindfulness is awareness training. It is an approach that can be learnt and usefully adopted when feeling bothered by worry or persistent unwanted thoughts.

The aim of mindfulness practice is to observe our thoughts, feelings and emotions rather than get caught up in them, or to give them authority and see them as truth.

Mindfulness techniques can help us to be present and aware and can release us from the stress and pain that often comes with ruminative thinking.

In this way it is possible to manage stress and anxiety, feel calmer, respond rather than react, improve sleep and motivation and be more compassionate towards ourselves and others.

Rather like mindfulness, polyvagal theory describes the connection between mind and body. According to this theory, our nervous system’s health affects how secure and connected we feel in daily life.

The longest nerve in the body is the vagus nerve, connecting the body to the brain and affecting how we react to stress. While certain nervous system states encourage calmness, confidence and social engagement, others lead to disconnection and self-protection. This is sometimes known as ‘flight, fight, freeze or fawn’ state. Events, memories or past traumas can prompt a person to go into any of these states. Becoming stuck in, or staying in, one of these states for too long can be detrimental to mental and physical wellbeing.

Polyvagal theory suggests that we can recognise – and start to change – these nervous states through awareness and by using certain strategies, such as breathing techniques, movement and social contact. In this way we can learn to be in ventral vagal state more often, where we feel safe and connected to ourselves, other people and the world around us.

Location

Sessions are in-person or online.

I currently work at Spring Gardens Therapy Rooms, along with Laura Watley and Judith Cooper.

Spring Gardens Therapy Rooms
Primary House
Spring Gardens
Macclesfield
SK10 2DX

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Get in touch

Enquiries and appointments can be made by email, text or telephone. If I am unable to speak to you in person when you call, please leave a message.

I will try to respond to your initial enquiry within 24 hours. We can then arrange a free, no obligation, 15 minute chat (approx) on the phone to start to get to know each other and see if we can work together.

Daytime, evening and weekend appointments are available.

​I look forward to hearing from you.

hello@helendewhurstcounselling.co.uk
07546 647190
Counselling in Macclesfield Cheshire

Sessions and rates

My standard sessions cost £50 for 50 mins.

I ask for payment by bank transfer before the start of each session. 

A limited number of concessionary appointments are available. Please enquire for further details.

If you do need to cancel a session, I ask that you give a minimum of 48 hours notice, unless it is an emergency, otherwise full payment may be required. I will aim to give you the same notice should I need to.

© Copyright - Helen Dewhurst Counselling - Macclesfield, Cheshire