Holding Space for Students & Trainees
My ongoing interest in practitioner wellbeing naturally extends to students and trainees within the helping professions, including counselling, psychotherapy, social care, health, education, and related roles.
Training can be exciting, rewarding, challenging, and sometimes overwhelming.
Alongside developing knowledge and skills, there is often personal growth, self-reflection, supervision, academic demands, placements, and the first experiences of supporting others through difficult times.
The impact of this work does not sit only within you. It is often shaped by the wider contexts and demands you are learning and working within.
Student Therapy
I have experienced both the value and the weight of counselling and psychotherapy training, first as a student, and later as a lecturer and tutor at Keele University.
I offer a limited number of reduced-fee therapy spaces for those in training, as holding space for students feels a privileged and important part of my work.
Counselling training is often described as life-changing, which feels fitting given the responsibility of sitting alongside others who are also seeking change.
Practice Well
Practice Well is a reflective and psychoeducational support model of 6 sessions designed by me for helping professionals navigating emotionally demanding work.
Practice Well offers confidential, structured reflective spaces for helping professionals who are navigating the emotional, psychological, relational, and professional impact of caring work.
Grounded in a person-centred and psychologically informed approach, Practice Well recognises that caring work will affect practitioners over time. These impacts are not signs of personal weakness, failure, or a lack of professional capacity. They are understandable responses to emotionally demanding human work.
At the heart of Practice Well is the belief that awareness is protective. Developing greater awareness of the impact and rewards of emotionally demanding work can support practitioners to recognise, understand, and respond to their experiences with greater reflection, clarity, and support.
Reflective practice includes the practitioner too.
Available on a one-to-one basis, a small groups model is currently in development.
Practice Well offers space to consider the impact of the work, develop awareness, and explore what supports you to remain well within it.
Holding Space
Holding Space holds a selection of reflections on my social media channels.
It aims to observe and communicate the impact of the work, and your place within it, as you learn to support others, because while you are learning to hold others, you matter too.
The Thinking
Behind My Work
All of this work is informed by a Professional Trauma & Fatigue lens, offering a way of understanding the emotional, relational, and psychological impact that can come with caring for others, even in training.
Alongside recognising the potential risks, I am equally interested in what helps us stay well, and in the quieter rewards that can emerge through the work.
This is also shaped by a person-centred understanding of how we relate to ourselves within our roles. Drawing on the core conditions of empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard, I encourage students and practitioners to explore their experiences with honesty, curiosity, and compassion.
In this way, care for yourself is not something added on, but something that can begin to emerge from how we are with ourselves.
Supportive resources, including workbooks, journal prompts, and guided reflections, are currently being developed to continue this thinking beyond individual sessions.
What you might bring
People come to therapy for many different reasons. Not everyone arrives with a diagnosis, whether wanted or not. You might not be in crisis or even have a clear understanding of what doesn’t feel right.
You might feel:
overwhelmed or under pressure
experiencing stress or burnout
navigating relationships, ending relationships, grief, or life changes
trying to make sense of something that doesn’t feel quite right
You don’t need to have a clear explanation. Sometimes it’s simply a sense that something needs attention
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50-minute sessions
Available online across the UK
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£60 per 50-minute session (adjust if needed)
A limited number of reduced-fee spaces are available for student & trainee counsellors and those in helping roles.Please email me at sass@sassboucher.com for more information.
If you’re considering therapy, you’re welcome to get in touch.
We can arrange an initial conversation to see whether working together feels like the right fit.
Downloads & Resources
Downloads & resources for Professionals, Students & Therapy clients alike.
Short paragraph about taking a look to help them?