Professional. Confidential. Free.
Life isn’t easy and sometimes things can happen, which are beyond our control and we may not like. When this happens we can feel frightened, out of control and feels as though know one understands or cares. Gay-affirmative counselling utilises the therapeutic relationship to facilitate positive change and psychological growth, particularly when we are experiencing a crisis in our life. By providing a safe and supportive environment, counselling can help you to feel heard and understood as well as helping you to experience and healthily express a wide-spectrum of emotions in a safe and contained space. Counselling can also help you to understand how past experiences may be impacting on your everyday relationships and subsequently help you to break negative cycles of behaviour that you may find challenging. Talking through your problems with a professional within a confidential setting can help you todevelop a greater sense of self-awareness, insight, and gain a sense of emotional well-being.
The HGN Emotional Well-being Service accepts self-referrals, referrals from your GP or other agencies. We can provide free short-term gay-affirmative counselling for gay and bisexual men, men who have sex with men (MSM) and people who identify as trans (female to male).
Areas that the Emotional Wellbeing Service works with:
Self esteem and confidence
Sexual difficulties and sexual risk-taking behaviours
Coming out and/or sexuality confusion-
Sexual health awareness and advice-
Living and/or coping with HIV and AIDS-
Relationship and couples work-
Dealing with homophobia and hate crimes-
Coping with specific trauma following homophobic incidents, sexual/physical assault, and/or verbal abuse-
Gender and identity confusion-
Advice and support surrounding wider issues affecting your life, such as depression and anxiety.
Age restrictions:
HGN can offer counselling to clients aged 16 and over. Clients who are under 16 and wish to access our service can do so for short-term advice and support around a sexuality, gender, identity, sexual health and sign-posting to age appropriate services. However, if more in-depth support is required, this can be discussed and negotiated during the initial consultation.
Number of sessions offered:
Initial consultation plus up to 16 additional sessions, which will be reviewed every 6 sessions to ensure that we are continuing to meet your needs.
Session duration and frequency:
Weekly sessions lasting approximately 55 minutes.
Location:
Our main office is based at The Broad Street Centre, 12 Broad Street, Hockley, Nottingham but some counselling sessions take place at the NHS Walk-in Centre on Upper Parliament Street. The location will be confirmed by the counsellor once the first appointment has been made.
Assessment:
An initial assessment (telephone or face-to-face) will be completed within 10 days of your referral being received.
Waiting time to commence counselling:
Following the initial assessment you may be placed on a short waiting list. However, the service works relentlessly to reduce the possibility of this situation happening. This will be discussed with you at your assessment and you will be contacted either by telephone or text to arrange your first counselling session.
About the counselling service at Healthy Gay Nottingham:
HGN counsellors are highly professional and are trained up to Degree and/or Post-Graduate Diploma level in Counselling and/or Psychotherapy from accredited training organisations. They also hold relevant qualifications and experience of working within the field of mental health and have an understanding and appreciation of the complex mental health difficulties that can affect people on a daily basis. HGN counsellors draw on a variety of therapeutic models in counselling, such as Humanistic, Relational-Developmental, and Psychodynamic. All counsellors work to a Gay-Affirmative model of counselling and are working towards UKCP (United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy) and BACP (British association for Counselling and Psychotherapy). They adhere to BACP and UKCP codes of professional and ethical conduct and maintain high levels of confidentiality and therapeutic boundaries.
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Support services
