What we do
Our purpose
We are a charity mental health service offering affordable counselling to our local community. South Bucks Counselling is a non-profit service run by volunteer counsellors, practising in the heart of High Wycombe for over 40 years.
Why counselling?
Many of us experience times during our life when we feel emotionally challenged. We might struggle to cope and make sense of our thoughts and feelings. Perhaps this is triggered by stress, grief, anxiety, changes in our relationships? There are many reasons why we seek counselling.
It can be difficult to share complicated thoughts and feelings with friends and family. With a counsellor, you can speak freely in a safe environment, without fear of rejection, criticism or blame.
At SBC, we will think carefully with you about the problems which have brought you in to see us. We will think about your early relationships and experiences; what has made you, you? Counselling can help you to explore the way you think and act; to see how you may be repeating unhelpful patterns of behaviour or thinking. It can be hard to change something until you can see that it is happening. Counselling can also help you explore the way you deal with relationships and conflicts in your life.
What can we help you with?
Our counsellors can help with common mental health difficulties such as depression and anxiety, bereavement and loss, physical/emotional/sexual abuse, low self- esteem, mild alcohol and drug problems, difficulties at university or home, challenging life experiences and problems with forming and sustaining relationships.
If you think you might have multiple, complex mental health difficulties, severe substance abuse or are at risk of serious self-harm, counselling with SBC might not be right for you at this time. If this describes how you are feeling at the moment, you should let your GP know. If necessary, they can help you to find more specialised help. As a community-based service, we do not have a multi-disciplinary mental health team to support people with severe mental health needs. As well as contacting your GP, you could also look at our ‘Resources’ section on this website, which has other organisations you may find helpful.
How we work with you
The first step is an initial consultation which lasts up to 1 hour. This is a time when you will speak to one of our senior counsellors and talk through what has bought you into counselling. It gives you a chance to understand what SBC can offer, and how it could help you to work through your problems. It also gives us the chance to get to know you; we’ll think about your life experiences, what’s been important to you as you’ve grown up and how all this might fit together to give a deeper understanding of what is happening in your life now.
Following this consultation, we will match you with one of our counsellors who will work with you to get to a place where you can once again feel able to cope and manage your thoughts and feelings.
We offer up to 24 weeks of once weekly one-to-one counselling, either in-person at The Cottage, our centre in High Wycombe or online. You will always see the same counsellor, on the same day at the same time.