Clinical Practice
Clinical practice is rarely about finding the perfect question or remembering the right technique.
More often, it's about learning to stay curious, noticing what is happening in the room, and trusting the therapeutic relationship.
The resources below are drawn from my own experience as a counsellor, alongside ideas that have emerged through supervision, further training and thousands of conversations with clients. They are not intended as rules or definitive answers. Instead, they are practical reflections designed to support trainee and newly qualified counsellors as they develop confidence in their own way of working.
Take what is useful.
Question what doesn't fit.
Above all, allow yourself permission to become the therapist you are still becoming.
Opening Therapy Sessions
Questions and reflections for beginning therapeutic conversations, building rapport, and exploring what brings clients to counselling.
Working With Men
Questions and reflections for working with men, masculinity, pressure, emotional expression, and identity.
Working With Fathers
Exploring fatherhood, responsibility, guilt, relationships, and paternal identity.
Useful Counsellor One-Liners
Simple questions, reflections and observations that can deepen conversations and encourage therapeutic insight.
→ Explore Useful Counsellor One-Liners
Grief & Bereavement
Questions and reflections for supporting clients experiencing loss, grief, and life after bereavement.
Shame & Guilt
Working with self-criticism, responsibility, perfectionism, and self-worth.
Identity & Life Transitions
Supporting clients navigating change, uncertainty, ageing, purpose, and major life transitions.
→ Read Identity & Life Transitions
When Grief Doesn't Look Like Grief
A different lens for understanding grief, with practical reflections and questions to help identify loss that may be quietly shaping a client's experience.
→ Explore When Grief Doesn't Look Like Grief
Why Men Don't Always Talk About Their Feelings
A practical reflection on recognising emotional meaning within the everyday language many men use to describe pressure, responsibility, work and relationships.
→ Explore Why Men Don't Always Talk About Their Feelings
What They Don't Tell You About Neurodivergence
A practical reflection on adapting therapy for neurodivergent clients by questioning assumptions, embracing curiosity, and understanding different ways of experiencing the world.
→ Explore What They Don't Tell You About Neurodivergence
Working with Interpreters in the Counselling Room
Practical guidance for counsellors working with interpreters, covering communication, confidentiality, culture, boundaries and the therapeutic relationship.
→ Explore Working with Interpreters in the Counselling Room
Clinical practice is something we grow into rather than arrive at.
The longer I work as a therapist, the less interested I become in having the perfect intervention and the more interested I become in understanding the person sitting in front of me.
I hope these resources leave you feeling a little more confident, a little more curious and reassured that uncertainty isn't a sign you're doing something wrong. More often, it's simply part of becoming a thoughtful practitioner.
This collection will continue to grow as new reflections, practical tools and ideas emerge from practice.
If you're looking for your own space to reflect on client work, placement experiences or your development as a counsellor, I also offer counselling for trainee and newly qualified counsellors in Manchester and online throughout the UK.
→ Learn more about counselling for trainee and newly qualified counsellors
This article is part of the Free Resources for Trainee & Newly Qualified Counsellors, a growing library of practical guides and clinical reflections designed to support therapists in training and beyond.