Claire Lewis, BACP

BACP Accredited Member. 4 years post-qualified experience. Claire Lewis works with stress, anxiety, relationship and family concerns, grief and self-esteem. She describes herself as an integrative counsellor who uses a person-centred base alongside psychodynamic, Gestalt, cognitive behavioural therapy and solution-focused ideas.

Claire has four years of professional practice, largely in an employee assistance programme where she offered short-term counselling to people with varied difficulties. For three years she has also supported neurodiverse university students, doing medium to long-term work as needed. That mix means she is used to both brief interventions and longer-term support.

Her approach starts from a person-centred stance, which means the client’s perspective guides sessions. Psychodynamic ideas are used to look at patterns and past influences. Gestalt methods bring attention to present experience, while cognitive behavioural elements focus on practical ways to manage thoughts and behaviour. Solution-focused techniques are used to set achievable goals.

In practice she helps people talk through stress, manage anxiety, address relationship and family conflict, and cope with bereavement including pet grief. She also works on motivation, self-esteem and confidence. Claire notes experience with abandonment issues, attachment difficulties, autism and Asperger syndrome, blended family challenges, caregiving stress, commitment and communication problems, divorce and domestic violence-related concerns.

Sessions are collaborative and shaped by what the client needs at the time. Claire emphasises working together to decide pace and focus. She offers counselling in English and practises in the United Kingdom.

Approaches used in online counselling and how they help