World Mental Health day is a wonderful point to consider our own unique mental health and for me, writing for this blog is part of good mental health; I love writing, I love processing my [...]

Have you ever had a thought of “I wish I couldn’t wake up? I can’t face it anymore!”. I had, but it was a temporary feeling of low mood with no intension to end my life. I consider myself the [...]

By Ashley Ward For the past nine years I have been working as a swimming instructor – having a love of the water started from an early age – swimming in the sea, jumping the waves, donning a [...]

The term self-care is used a lot these days, but what does it really mean?  The World Health Organisation 1998 definition is:  “Self-Care is what people do for themselves to establish and [...]

I had some feedback from one of my students recently regarding the CPCAB Level 4 Diploma in therapeutic counselling course she is studying on. It said: ‘Compared to my previous college I view [...]

2015 was the year that I learnt to run and my journey to better mental health started. The two are intricately joined and have been for the past nearly 6 years.  When my youngest son went [...]

Whereas quality/lack of sleep is often not viewed as a presenting problem in counselling work, it can be a contributory factor to distress and is therefore worthy of a greater understanding. [...]

For nearly 20 years, Westmeria Counselling Service has worked with members of our local community and Primary Care Trust to support their mental health and wellbeing. Our counselling service has [...]

Despite what M&S, John Lewis or Aldi would have us believe about Christmas, for many people, Christmas is a time of stress – a time when we may feel under pressure and depleted emotionally, [...]

On Sunday 4th October, we were incredibly lucky to have Matt running the Virgin London Virtual Marathon in aid of Westmeria. Like many charities, the London marathon is a huge event in our [...]