Empowering You in your Therapy Goals

Hello, I'm Liza Saunders.  I'm originally from Canada but resettled in the UK in 2006.  At that time, I had a good grounding in IT project management within the financial services industry.  Working in Central London in high-pressure environments provided first-hand experience (personal, and through colleagues) of the impacts of stress on one's mental health.  

Like many, the financial crash in 2010 prompted a re-evaluation of my priorities and whether I was living the life I wanted.  The financial rewards of working in IT provided stability, but I was increasingly unhappy in a Corporate environment. Even when I had kudos from managers about my performance and a good salary, it felt empty to me.  

Even before training in counselling and psychology, in every job I've had I enjoyed working with and supporting others. Whether this was providing an empathetic ear, shoulder to cry on or others and helping support others with solving their problems.  Counselling seems like something I've been doing all my life!  I started re-training to become a professional counsellor in 2010 and never looked back!

One of the things I love about being a counsellor is being able to learn and apply new and different therapy approaches. As everyone is different, it is helpful to learn different therapy approaches as some styles are better suited to specific difficulties.  

My training has covered Person-centred, Psychodynamic, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and Systemic approaches.  

I've always been interested in hypnosis and have found this effective myself.  It is great for stress management, relaxation and helping manage anxiety.  I became a bigger fan around 2018 when I experienced low mood (low-level depression, likely job-related). I tried so many different things over many months in trying to shake off my low energy.  It was hypnosis that finally jump-started me towards improvement.   Just doing it once, improved my mood and energy significantly.   To ensure I can work as a therapist in an integrated way, I trained in Cognitive-Behaviroual Hypnotherapy, which appeared the most psychologically-based hypnotherapy training available.  This also makes it easier to integrate compatible therapy approaches together.

 Although I run occasional time-limited group work programmes and ad hoc workshops, I'm primarily working with individual clients.    As a counselling psychologist, a great deal of therapy focuses on the client-therapist relationship.  My style is better suited to focus on one person at a deeper, analytical level  rather than  trying to spread that across multiple people.  

My early gains in providing emotional support and using counselling skills began with volunteer work at mental health and suicide charities..   

As I made a career transition from IT into psychology studies, counselling training and gaining qualifications, I also worked with people experiencing mental health difficulties, autism and/or life-altering brain injuries (stroke, trauma etc.) as a social prescriber or personal support worker.  

I have worked within various NHS Trust settings across London in counselling positions in primary and secondary care.   I have hundreds of hours of experience working with:

• anxiety (stress, generalised anxiety, social anxiety, panic, performance anxiety etc.)
• depression (low to moderate)
• bereavement
• life adjustment issues (infertility, physical changes, cancer diagnosis and coping )
• life and self-identity difficulties (difficulties transiting into life stages, self-exploration etc.)
• relationship difficulties (problems with parents, spouse, partner, children etc.)
• psychosis experiences and recovery

Having attended autism awareness training and worked with autistic individuals in healthcare support roles, this has provided great insight into adapting counselling for clients on the autistic spectrum,  

I also find myself with a larger number of friends and colleagues diagnosed with ADHD so I'm gaining good insight into adapting and tailoring therapy to accommodate some of these unique needs. 

• British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP Registered Member) 
• British Psychological Society (BPS)
• National Council for Hypnotherapy (NCH)

• Counselling and Counselling Skills (Distinction)  from Birkbeck University
• Masters in Psychology (Distinction)  from Birkbeck University
• Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy -  UK College of Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy 
• Trainee Counselling Psychologist - I am in my final year at City, University of London. Upon graduation, I'll be 'Dr. Liza'.