Highgate Counselling Centre has as its stated aim: “Offering help with personal and relationship problems”. The service is offered by trained counsellors and counsellors in training, who work on a voluntary basis.
The Centre offers individual counselling, groupwork, couples, family and bereavement counselling. All counselling is supervised by qualified psychotherapists, and counsellors meet once a week with their supervisors to discuss their sessions with clients. The Centre also has medical and psychiatric cover through its own consultants.
The Centre adheres to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy’s Codes of Ethics and Practice.
The main accent of the work at ‘Highgate’ is expressed in the ‘long-term therapeutic relationship’ using psychodynamic insights, but always within the training and experience of the counsellors. Short-term contracts (twelve sessions), if appropriate, are offered.
Clients are expected to make contact with the Centre themselves as evidence of their motivation. They will then be offered an initial interview, after which they are allocated to an appropriate counsellor. Counselling sessions are held weekly for the contracted period of up to two years. In some exceptional circumstances the period of counselling may be extended, depending upon client needs and professional judgement.
Highgate has deliberately kept itself to a size at which it retains the feeling of a friendly centre rather than a faceless institution. It is, however, open to extending its work in counselling to organisations in both the private and public sectors.