Atypical Psychology- Counselling and Psychology with a neurodivergent twist.

Welcome to Atypical Psychology.

Hi, my name is Wanda and I am a counselling psychologist in training and fully qualified counsellor. I also have AuDHD; I am autistic and have ADHD for you non neurospicey people out there!

Welcome to my new website- I have been working as a counsellor since around 2010 and this website is a complete rebranding of my practice, as I was recently late-diagnosed as AuDHD. I am sure you can imagine what a surprise it was, when I finally figured it out.

I didn’t realise I was a Gestalt learner until I learnt more about diversity and education; and now it makes sense to me. What’s a Gestalt learner (GL), you may ask? GL a theory that learning is a result of observing and comprehending stimuli in relation to one another, not just individually, and the importance of a person’s awareness of their own environment and how this interacts with their previous experiences and knowledge base.

What has this got to do with therapy, you ask? Well, both the learning style and my neurodivergence mean I am never satisfied with one answer; there has to be more than one answer. So, I keep looking and I keep studying and learning.

I integrate all of this into the therapy room; my style is eclectic, because I believe we are so unique, that your therapy and counselling experience should be tailored to you, and that means we need a lot of tools to put in our tool boxes!

My therapy style is firmly based in person-centred counselling, as a bare minimum being open, non-judgemental and giving unconditional positive regard should be the standard when it comes to starting therapy. BUT! I quickly found that just reflecting back wasn’t enough for a lot of clients, and I felt like I wanted to provide more to my clients. Training in different therapeutic models helped me to work out my therapeutic style, and my experience with different clients has helped me to work out might help for you; you may have tried it, or you it may not work, but this is what having a tool box is for! It means you have other tools to try.

So I went on to study on days away, weeks away; I started a MSc in Counselling at Bristol University, that I had to leave (ADHD much?), but I found a home in Counselling Psychology and the relational base that gave me.

I love attachment theory, systems theory, psychodynamic theory, gestalt and others and incorporate them all into your therapy. I even find that CBT has a place in my therapy room; when used with the right clients, and in the correct way! A lot of my work is trauma focus based; I honestly cannot think of a client who I haven’t worked with, or heard about, who hasn’t got some form of trauma (I am not being flippant here- ask me what I think trauma is and you may be surprised!). So, it is so important to bring that into the work.

I am fully qualified and insured by Howden’s insurance and I am governed by the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and adhere to their standards, frameworks and policies.