Karen Spilsbury, NCPS

Karen Spilsbury is a counsellor registered with the NCPS in the United Kingdom and has eight years of professional experience. She works with adults facing stress, anxiety, addictions, trauma and abuse, low self-esteem and coping with life changes. Karen writes that she treats clients as the expert of their own story and builds on their existing strengths.

Her approach is practical and conversational. Sessions focus on clear, manageable steps rather than long lectures. She uses a mix of methods to help people notice unhelpful patterns and try different ways of responding to them.

Karen draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to help people change how they relate to difficult thoughts and feelings. She also uses Client-Centred Therapy and elements of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy to support emotional regulation and practical problem solving. Hypnotherapy is listed among her approaches where appropriate.

She has worked with people dealing with relationship separation, addiction, domestic violence and complex responses after trauma. Other areas she addresses include attachment and abandonment issues, communication and control problems, dissociation and co-morbidity challenges. She also notes experience with autism and Asperger Syndrome and with disruptive mood patterns.

In sessions Karen aims to map out what is causing the most strain and then test small changes. Conversations tend to centre on realistic actions, coping skills and clearer decision making. People who want straightforward, skills-based work and a collaborative counsellor may find this approach useful.

Approaches used in online sessions