Coco Vivienne Ann

I am qualified in a Level 7 Postgraduate Diploma in Humanistic Counselling & Psychotherapy at Brighton University, which equates to a master's level of training. I am registered with the BACP and abide by their ethical framework. 

Previously, I studied English Literature at degree level and gained an MA in Creative Writing. Expression and having a voice is important to me, and it is just as important that my clients can have expression and a voice in the room with me. 

I volunteered with MindOut as a counsellor for more than two years offering support to LGBTQ+ adults. My Private Practice also supports this and I work in an LGBTQ+ and neurodiverse friendly therapy hub. 

I use a Humanistic approach, also known as Person Centred or Client Led, and my approach also involves somatic experience (the mind-body connection). This means I view you as the expert of your life – I am not the clinical, stone-faced professional that will tell you what to do or will just sit there analysing you – I will build a nurturing, therapeutic relationship with you where you can discover who you are and what you need. Humanistic therapy is holistic and works with the here-and-now experience as well as the past. It emphasises becoming our most authentic self, actualising our needs, creating our own meaning and narratives, and viewing the person as a whole being, which includes the person’s embodied experience and relationship to the body. This might involve exploring physical sensations and tensions, intuition and gut feelings, how emotions show up in the body, movement (breathing, meditation, posture, using stim toys) and looking at self-care habits involving food, sleep and exercise, as this is all connected to our well-being. I have worked with chronic pain and in my experience using somatic and creative tools have helped clients understand or even improve their chronic pain. Somatic experience is also a useful tool for dealing with trauma (where the traumas are stored) but this will be done slowly and safely and at the client’s own pace.