Welcome to Infinite-Well-Counselling
Hello, I’m Sophie, a Person-Centred counsellor (MBACP) with a background in Yoga (YTT-500), Breathwork and Clinical Psychology (MSc).
I’m someone who deeply appreciates the unseen, harder-to-articulate layers of connection and integration that take place in counselling.
In other words, I understand the power of counselling to call forth parts of ourselves that long to be 'seen' so that we can feel soothed, centred and whole.
My Approach to Counselling
The counselling I offer sits under the humanistic umbrella which, in essence, means I believe we each hold the capacity to change our lives through awareness, compassion, and personal discernment.
Because we grow up in a complex, often demanding, world from a very young age, we learn to bend and shape ourselves to fit in. Over time, the gap between who we truly are and who we’ve become in order to feel accepted by others can grow painfully wide.
Many mental health ‘issues’ stem from the impact of continued disconnection between our authentic self and the version of ourselves we present to the world, in both big and small ways - from living a whole existence to please other people to pretending you’re feeling fine today when, really, you’re not.
Even when something ‘external’ brings us into counselling, like a loss or an unexpected change, we soon discover that who we are cannot be separated from how we grieve, or cope with uncertainty, or relate to the rest of the world.
Person-Centred Counselling
Person-centred counselling offers a space where you can explore who you are - today - free from judgment, pressure, or the need to perform. It’s a confidential space where you can speak honestly, often more so than anywhere else in your life.
Here, the whole of you is welcome. That might sound simple, but it’s not always easy. Many of us suppress, minimise or completely sideline parts of our experience in order to fulfil other peoples and our own expectations. Learning to let all of you belong can be slow, tender work. That’s why we go at your own pace, in an atmosphere of empathy, care, and presence.
Here, you’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to vent. You’re allowed to speak about the same thing over and over again, and you’re allowed to change your mind. You’re allowed to say the first thing that comes into your head and you’re allowed to take a long time figuring out how you really feel. You’re allowed to cry, you’re allowed to laugh, you’re allowed to sit in silence as long as you want.
Expressing yourself, in the moment, takes practice so you’re allowed to be shy, uncertain, wooden, rusty, reserved and awkward as well.
Over time, this permission to always be yourself in counselling can have various positive impacts: it can help you think and feel more clearly; it can help you establish new boundaries, ‘habits’, or intentions; it can help you feel more integrated and aligned, or it can simply help you feel lighter, as if you’re finally ‘getting something off your chest’.
That doesn’t mean that life itself becomes easy, but it does mean you’re able to meet life’s challenges a little more fluently: knowing who you are, attending to your own needs with care. And this can make the whole difference between feeling like life is happening to you, to feeling like you are an artist working on the tapestry of your heart’s desires.
J. Krishnamurti wrote, “We come to the infinite well of life with a thimble, and so we go away thirsty.”
Counselling provides a space to look at how we’re approaching this infinite well of life. What conditions or limitations do we place on ourselves, and why? How can we tap back into a sense of life’s vast potential?
Infinite-Well-Counselling
In Celtic and British tradition, the well is a cosmic womb: a source of life, a gateway to hidden wisdom, a place of healing, and a seat of sovereignty. Across histories and cultures, sacred wells were pilgrimage sites for cures and blessings, the bubbling water representing regeneration.
In some ways, this is how I think of counselling - a place that marks the threshold between the self that’s here, now, and the expanded self, which is timeless and totally connected to source. The “work” lies in mindfully titrating between the two: ‘this is where I am’ and ‘everything is possible’.
True freedom comes through completely accepting yourself as you are, today, at the same time as knowing you have full capacity to change. Most importantly, there is no hurry to get anywhere as there is nowhere else to get! Counselling provides a space for you to relish in who you are becoming along the way, responding to life as it changes as if you are dancing to music that plays.
Special Interests
My training and approach allow me to work with anyone seeking counselling.
I aim to hold medical diagnoses and clinical terms in balance with your personal and subjective experience. I want to know what it feels like to be you today, and I expect that to shift and evolve over time. I also believe that ‘problems’ have diverse roots and manifest differently in each of us, depending on our cultural, social, and personal contexts.
That said, here are some of the challenges people bring to our work together:
Abuse
ADD / ADHD
Addictions
AIDS / HIV
Ambivalence towards self and others
Anger management
Anxiety
Attachment and clinging
Avoidance and procrastination
Bereavement and loss
Bubbling resentments
Bullying
Cancer and illness
Career issues
Child-related issues
Cultural identity and transitions
Dementia
Depression
Desolation
Desperation
Difficulty expressing oneself
Disability
Disordered eating
Emotional overwhelm
Environmental concerns
Fear of the future or unknown
Fears, phobias and aversions
Feeling lost or confused
Financial stress and debt
Fits of rage
Gender, sex and identity
Inertia and bone-tiredness
Infertility and reproductive health
Insomnia
Life transitions and skills
Loneliness
Nervousness to any degree
Obsessive thinking / OCD
Perfectionism
Pregnancy and postpartum experiences
PTSD / trauma
Redundancy and job loss
Relationship difficulties
Sadness and grief
Self-doubt to any degree
Self-esteem
Self-harm
Sexual abuse
Sexuality
Spirituality and meaning
Stress and burnout
Suicidal thoughts
‘Using’ food, alcohol and drugs to numb or escape
Work-related issues
*Please note: the items on this list are not necessarily problems in themselves. Whether they are experienced as painful or problematic often depends on personal and social context.
In addition to Person-Centred counselling, I offer optional breathwork exercises to clients who would like either before or after talking, which some people find helpful for soothing an agitated nervous system.
Location
My work address is Rochester House, 48 Rochester Gardens, Brighton and Hove, which is easily accessible form areas such as East Sussex, West Sussex and London.
Fees
Counselling sessions are £50 (50 minutes)
Clients can work with me for as long (or as short) as they want to.
Get in touch
I offer a free 20 minute taster session to all new clients before starting work
My email address is sophietaylorclark@gmail.com
My phone number is 07515012906