Carlos Gibson-Foy
Rushden & Milton Keynes Counselling
MA Psychotherapy (University of Middlesex)
CPCAB Diploma (L4 Therapeutic Counselling)
CPCAB Certificate (L3 Counselling Studies Skills)
CPCAB Certificate (L2 Counselling Skills)
MBACP, MSOPH, Accredited (CRUSE)
Rushden Counselling Contact Details
Tel: 01933395497 (Private office line with answer machine)
Mob: 07427144234
Email: Carlos@TonicCounselling.co.uk
Page Navigation:
• Personal Summary • Philosophy • Therapeutic Model • Testimonials •
• Favourite Quotes • Deepest Fear • Desiderata • C. G. Jung Quotes •
• Various Quotes •
Testimonial
I was dead against going to seek help or talk to anyone because I thought it made me weak, or strange. After years of making my own life hell and everyone around me I was talked into going to speak to someone for help.
Luckily for me my family could see I needed help... once I went and spoke to Carlos even after the first time, I felt I had some support, someone out of the situation that was there for me. It's not easy, but the more I went the more I could see that talking was the best thing I could do. After a few months things started to click into place, all down to being able to fire off my thoughts and feelings to someone I now very much look up too. It was the best thing I've ever done in my life; I just wish I hadn't waited until my thirties to do it. It didn't make me weak or strange, just the opposite. It lifted a huge weight I'd been carrying on my shoulders all my life.
It's hard work, but if you really want it, then there is support, real support there.
Within 6 months my life has now completely flipped and I'm proud of myself for the first time ever.
I cannot recommend Carlos highly enough for what he's done for me.
He literally saved my life. And for that, I'll be forever in his debt.
Summary
Education and Experience
In order to become a counsellor and psychotherapist, Carlos dedicated himself to an initial six years of study during which time he was awarded two certificates, one diploma and an MA. Notwithstanding this, Carlos continues to study and write his own material improving his skills and understanding of people. Carlos' unique combination of training, skill and lengthy experience allows him to deliver a level of service excellence to his clients that is second to none.
Counselling Experience:
• Thousands of clinical counselling and psychotherapy hours
• Hundreds of individuals and couples helped to improve their quality of life and relationships
• Worked with individuals, couples and families from all walks of life; Children, teens, adults and seniors. Men and women. Many faiths and belief systems.
Previous agency and counselling service experience
• NHS CABS (Northampton General Hospital: Child and Adolescent Bereavement Service)
• MIND: Rushden MIND (Charity)
• CRUSE: Northamptonshire CRUSE (Charity)
Other Relevant Experience:
•Psychological Trainer: Writes and Runs Anger and stress management and resolution courses
•Facilitates Personal Development Workshops
•Facilitates Group Therapy
psychotherapeutic Approach / Model:
Carlos' approach to counselling, psychotherapy and anger management is based around the individual and therefore is adaptive. He does not believe that the client should conform to the model or mode of therapy of the therapist but rather that the counsellor should accommodate the individual and their way of being and processing. Carlos is quick to adapt and can accommodate all life perspectives and personality types, including, rational or logical, emotional, spiritual, religious, relational, and any combination or variation therein.
Carlos has formal training in:
• Integrative psychotherapy
◦ Psychodynamic approach
◦ Jungian and Buddhist style Psychotherapy
◦ Rogerian Psychotherapy
However, his on-going studies, skills and experience allow him to offer so much more.
Personal Summary
Carlos is a fully qualified Full-time professional Psychotherapist and Counsellor working in Bedford, Northampton, and Milton Keynes. He is a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, (MBACP)and has been working as a Counsellor since January 2006 and subsequently accrued thousands of clinical hours experience working with a diverse range of individuals with a wide range of issues.
Prior to becoming a Counsellor and Psychotherapist Carlos' first professional career spanned 20 years designing, delivering and supporting high value critical computer systems within the financial industries. Therefore, his professional experience of people extends from shop-floor to board-room and everything in between and he is a highly accomplished communicator and relationship builder and an exceptional analyst.
During his Counselling and Psychotherapeutic training, to increase his knowledge and understanding, Carlos worked in the care sector, supporting and caring for individuals with severe emotional, relational and cognitive issues; physical disabilities and short and long term, ordinary to severe mental health issues. Carlos’ experience of emotional, relational and mental health issues therefore extends beyond the counselling room into the ‘everyday’.
He thus has a uniquely diverse combination of commercial, support and clinical counselling and psychotherapy experience that he can draw upon to better understand and connect with his clients. Plus he brings a unique combination of Counselling, Psychotherapeutic, relational and analytical skills to better help them.
Carlos as a Person and a Therapist
Carlos over the years, has undertaken his own personal journey that has presently brought him to where he is today and enabled him to become the Therapist that he has become; and it is an ongoing journey. Carlos has personal experience of change and growth and has travelled far from his beginnings and will travel further before he is finished. And since he has made the effort grow and develop he is able to help you with your growth needs. All people have or have had issues and insecurities and all people have it in them to grow and change.
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Philosophy
Personal Philosophy
Carlos has an unshakeable belief in people and does his best to see them as they truly are and accept them. He feels no need to delude himself or others into thinking that he himself or anyone else are without fault or mistake or perfect. Though sometimes difficult and painful to understand and accept, he believes that people are what and where they need to be and Carlos is the first to acknowledge his own pain, harm, mistakes, foolishness, frailties, hurt and humanity. Carlos ardently believes that it is only through truly meeting with ourselves in an open and honest relationship and interaction that we can accept ourselves and grow into something new. He is not afraid of the ‘ugliness’ within because he also sees the ‘beauty’ within and the opportunities life has to offer and while this may all seem somewhat clichéd and trite, it is true nonetheless. The idea that, when our Actions, Thoughts and Feelings coincide we can achieve true happiness resonates within him.
Spiritual Philosophy
Carlos believes that life has a purpose and that it is our humanity that facilitates that purpose and that avoiding and rejecting what we are denies that purpose and stifles the ability to grow. We are not here to be perfect, on the contrary, we are here to learn and grow and the only way anyone can achieve that is through the sometimes painful process of making ‘mistakes’ and accepting those ‘mistakes’ and frailties and learning from them. The greatest lies we tell are the lies we tell ourselves to provide comfort and deny what is ‘real’. The difficulty there is that the more we deny, avoid and push away, the less we learn and the more we repeat our mistakes and the more unhappy we become as our Thoughts, Actions and Feelings diverge in different directions.
Therapeutic Philosophy
All Therapists use themselves as their main tool for their work such that Therapy is built upon the Therapist’s way of being and their way of relating. It is therefore important for a therapist to have a congruent understanding of life and themselves and for you to know how your Therapist sees the world others and most importantly themselves. Carlos is a ‘real’ person; he does not pretend that he is something he is not. He does not hate or reject himself and then Counsels others in the hope that they will think well of him and be grateful to him to ease his pain. Instead, he does his best to truly ‘see’, recognise and understand himself and those around him; to be real with himself and others in relatedness and then care for, cherish, support and love not despite our ‘humanity’ but because of it. He values both the helpful and unhelpful in him and loves and encourages himself.
Carlos is able to help client’s put down their need to adapt and be ‘perfect’ so that they can be accepted or loved by ‘others’. Instead he offers them the opportunity to be with him in a ‘real’ relationship where they can be all that they are without fear of judgement, rejection, or retaliation. He accepts them for all that they are so that they can feel and learn what it is like to be truly accepted and then learn to accept themselves. This process is not easy and it takes courage to risk rejection in order to be accepted, however, Carlos is patient, gentle and open and clients eventually allow themselves to be seen and accepted so that they can heal themselves.
Carlos is respectful and sensitive to the beliefs, needs and understandings of others and does not seek to bludgeon or impose his beliefs or will onto anyone. He is not filled with empty positivity or ‘happy clappy’. Instead his beliefs provide him with stable ground on which to stand and meet with others and support them through their issues, changes, realisations and growing pains. Each must meet the world and themselves in their own way and for their own reasons and Carlos offers support and insight for that meeting.
Carl G Jung was the founder of analytical psychology and the first modern psychologist to acknowledge the significance of ‘spirituality’ and move away from the reductionist notion that we are no more than the sum of our parts. As such I have respect for the man and his work and here offer a few quotes that I feel are pertinent:
“An analyst can help his patient just so far as he himself has gone and not a step farther. …. with patients who got ‘stuck’ with their previous analysts and this always happened at the point where the analyst could make no further progress with himself.”
‘The Realities of Practical Psychotherapy’, paragraph 545. 1937
“The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.”
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Therapeutic Model
Carlos is a ‘Integrative’ Therapist; and has chosen a number of compatible theories and practices which he combines into a cohesive and dynamic model of practice that allows him to work within each client’s frame of reference without forcing clients to adapt their understanding and way of expressing to something they may feel is unnecessarily esoteric or academic. Not all theories and practices are compatible and therefore his choices were not random, like sweets in a bag or based on financial incentives but rather based on years of experience.
Briefly, he practices within a professional Therapeutic Relationship based on Roger’s core conditions, Winnicott’s notion of ‘holding’ and utilises his own well developed analytical and interpretative skills and life insights combined with a number of theoretical understandings including ‘Object Relations’; Klein’s ‘projection and introjection’; Winnicott’s ‘false self’; and Dialectics. He also, if a client wishes to, utilise a Jungian model for dream analysis that allows a client’s unconscious expression to be expressed and integrated within therapy sessions.
What this means for the client is that he forms a Therapeutic Relationship with his clients based on Empathy, (his ability to accurately track and understand what it feels like to be the client and to have lived and experienced their life), Unconditional Positive Regard, (his ability to truly accept and feel positive and care about a client without judgement, or personal agenda, demand, rejection or retaliation) and Congruence, (the ability to be present, real and authentic within the client-therapist relationship). This relationship is key to Therapeutic practice because it provides a confidential, facilitating and holding environment in which the client can be truly free to express whatever they need to express and be who they truly are without fear of judgement, rejection or retaliation.
Together within the therapeutic relationship they work through whatever issues a client brings both presently ‘in the moment’ and historically. They work to gain new insight and understanding, to express denied emotion and thought, and to make the unconscious conscious; and in that expression, reframing and understanding the client learns to accept and be gentle, tolerant and compassionate with themselves and to express gratitude and joy in who they are.
While during Therapy solutions to problems may be sought and found; fundamentally Therapy is concerned with personal growth and development.
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Testimonials
The following quotes were taken from written testimonials given to me by clients to express their thoughts, feelings and gratitude concerning our counselling work together. Not all clients give written thanks nor is it expected, but it is always a pleasant surprise when they do. What is published below are some exerts from some testimonials to give you a feel for the experience of others. The clients that wrote these testimonials have given permission for them to be published here. (In order to maintain confidentiality, client names have been changed, however, I keep the originals intact for verification purposes).
Leslie: 31 year old Female.
Issue: Bereaved through suicide.
“Just a little card to say a big thank you for guiding me along a tough journey in my life that has been one of the most rewarding experiences ever. I feel that I have dropped a lot of baggage off along the way and gained a friend.
Thank you so much for all the time and effort you have put into helping me.”
Carol: 35 year old Female.
Issue: Low self worth through Parental Emotional Neglect; Disability and Surgical Trauma.
Feedback:
“When I first met you, I was incredibly down and I felt alone. We talked about my father who disowned me, and about my mum and the way in they treated me had such a major impact on my adult life. Probably the most important thing that I learned whist seeing you was that my life consisted of constant attempts to deny and hide what I was; someone with significant health problems, and dare I say it; a disability!... I was so used to trying to fit in…. Instead of allowing myself to be who I was, I was in a constant battle with myself! Now, it seems laughable…. You taught me that by accepting and acknowledging what my limitations were, if I was prepared to adapt, that I could do anything I wanted to.
You gave me strength, encouraged me, supported me and you understood me. You amazed me by remembering the most trivial details and taunted me with them to inject humour into our sessions. You taught me to laugh at myself; to relax and be just who I was. No matter how upset I was, I always came out of our sessions feeling ‘lighter’ and happier – even the day before I went into hospital. You made me feel worthwhile, that I wasn’t a hypochondriac …. You dispelled my belief that I was a ‘time-waster’…
I could go on forever about how much difference my counselling with you has made to my life…. I did see counsellors in the past…, but none of them have had the skill, kindness and compassion that you have, Carlos. You care passionately and have such insight. I know that part of counselling is about a willingness to help yourself and make changes…. However, it takes an amazing person to break through the many layers of negativity and sadness that lay within me. I feel equipped to deal with anything and I can honestly say that I have never been happier….
Thank you for everything.”
Jack: 15 year old Male.
Issue: Bereaved of father; Fearful and Agoraphobic.
Feedback:
“Thanks for all the time and help you have given me.”
Bert: 53 year old Male.
Issue: Abused as a child. Ex-offender suffering from depression and low self worth.
Feedback:
“I want to thank you for being my counsellor. You have shown me understanding and patience and your marvellous ability to listen, but most of all your compassionate love. And being non judgemental, you have never spoken out of turn with me at any point.
I remember when I first came to see you; I did not care about my life in any way. Over time I have seen myself become a new person, almost like being born again. I now know how to love myself and forgive myself. I have confidence and self worth and I now see the future in a very different light.
Carlos, it was your ability as a counsellor that brought me through it all. You have a natural skill and such an understanding of humanity. It has been very hard work on my part, but now I am at peace with myself.
I wish you every success in your future as a counsellor and believe that this will set many people free to live as they were meant to be.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart and may pace and love follow you.”
James: 60 year old Male.
Issues: Abuse as a child (Physical, Psychological and Sexual), Abusive Children’s Home, Alcoholic, Self harm, Suicidal.
Feedback:
“I feel so much better. He has taught me to handle my issues and not to run away from them. I don’t break down anymore… I can discuss my past with anyone. I am much stronger now because of my Therapy, my life is worth living and I feel important in myself. All I can say is thank God I met Carlos; if I hadn’t then eventually a suicide attempt would have been successful.”
Professional Testimonials
The following are testimonials given by professional Therapists and Supervisors who have professional experience of Carlos.
Colleague: 2007 to –
Carlos is an extremely professional counsellor. His work reflects his attitude regarding confidentiality and boundaries and dedication and enthusiasm towards his clients. Carlos appreciates and understands the ongoing need for personal and professional development and growth and therefore uses his supervision and own personal therapy to monitor himself.
Supervisor and Counselling coordinator: Jan 2006 to –
Carlos displays a high level of professional conduct towards all of his clients whom he treats with dignity and respect. He has a deep level of empathic connection in his work with clients who present with a wide range of issues. Carlos makes full use of supervision.
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Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
Max Ehrmann
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