Senior Therapist – Coach – Trainer – Speaker
Senior Therapist – Coach – Trainer – Speaker
Stephen Allsopp, BSc (Hons), MNCPS (Accred), Dip Adlerian Couns IIP
Stephen is a counsellor and trainer, based in West Wales. After a 25 year career working in information technology, latterly in the finance/banking sector, and specialising in user-facing roles, he began to train as a counsellor in 2004.
Graduating from Roehampton University in 2007, he started his counselling career as a schools counsellor, and began teaching in 2011. He has taught on the Combined Certificate and Diploma in Adlerian Counselling in Wales since that time, and now runs Individual Psychology Training, an independent training provider offering counsellor training.
In addition to teaching, he runs a small private practice, and has specialist interests in suicide, counselling children and young people, and Adlerian psychology.
Outside his work, Stephen performs in a number of bands on bass guitar, electric viola, and vocals, and occasionally also performs as a stand-up comedian.
The existential psychotherapy approach, as described by writers such as Irvin Yalom and Emmy van Deurzen, can work as a rich adjunct to other counselling approaches, dealing as it does with fundamental problems of life, finding meaning, and dealing with isolation.
The subject is often perceived as dry and academic, but Stephen brings a fresh approach to the subject, leavened with humour, making it accessible to all.
The CPD day covers a brief history of existential philosophy, an exploration of some of the core concepts as they relate to counselling, and how Yalom’s “existential givens” can be used within therapy to help clients find answers to their difficulties.
While not intended as a full training to enable counsellors to work with this group, this day is an opportunity to explore this particular speciality, and looks at some of the challenges associated with such work, including working in schools, with adolescent and primary age children. Stephen’s wealth of experience in this area enables him to offer stories and ideas of some of the difficulties and delights of working with children and young people.
The topic of suicide is one which causes considerable anxiety amongst therapists. Stephen explores the history of social attitudes to this topic, and the basics of successful intervention strategies for helping clients experiencing feelings of suicide. Much of this day will be based around the ASIST suicide intervention model, and the primary focus is to enable participants to feel more capable of sitting with suicidal clients and working with them constructively, and without fear, to support them to recovery.
[Description here]
[Description here]