Skye Blyth-Whitelock (they/them) - Integrative Counsellor

My Therapeutic Approach

As an integrative counsellor, I draw upon various therapeutic approaches, depending on the needs of each client, as they emerge and change moment to moment.  This may include attachment-based, body-based, eco-therapeutic, existential, feminist, person-centred, psychodynamic, queer and transpersonal theories and approaches.

I work relationally, meaning that the counsellor-client relationship that is developed is important to us being able to work well together and for you, as the client, to feel safe enough to explore issues that may hold trauma or other strong feelings and experiences.  I welcome clients sharing their experience of me and will check in to see how our relationship is developing and if there are any issues between us that need tending.  Working in this way can also help you to identify relationship patterns that may be present in your other relationships that may be difficult to navigate.

I practise in a trauma-informed way that validates your experiences and supports understanding of how trauma impacts you.  I work with you to identify what is needed to establish a sense of trust and safety in your body, where trauma often gets stuck, in your relationships, where trauma is often constellated, and in the wider world.  Working in this way also promotes your strengths, capacities, personal choice and agency both in our work together and in life more broadly.    

For me, the personal is political.  I am an intersectional feminist, member of the Feminist Therapy Network, LGBTQIA+ affirmative therapist, member of Therapists against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia (TACTT) and I take an anti-oppressive stance in my work. This means that I recognise the impact of systems of power and oppression on us all and see “pathology” or “dysfunction” as being located within the socio-economic and political structures, and the personal and professional settings and relationships in which we exist, rather than in the individual.  In other words, context is everything and I work with you to think about how to resource yourself in this world and how to face discrimination and injustice in a way that feels affirming for you.  I hold an awareness of my own power, privilege and marginalisation and of how these issues can impact our work together in their meeting of your power, privilege and marginalisation and I encourage you to explore with me how these dynamics are present in our relationship.  

My Experience

Having worked in the voluntary sector throughout my professional life, I trained as a counsellor after my own experience of counselling, which changed my life.  I have been working in mental health and wellbeing for almost a decade, managing and overseeing the provision of mental health services, delivering one to one counselling and holding groups.  

I have also provided counselling under DePaul’s service for young adults aged 18-25, who are experiencing emotional distress, isolation, relationship difficulties and trauma.  In addition, I was a counsellor at Brighton Women’s Centre, providing therapy to women who are survivors of abuse, trauma and bereavement. 

I have held reflective parenting groups for kinship carers looking after children aged 2 - 10 and for fathers whose partners are accessing perinatal support.  These groups support parents and carers to better understand the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of both themselves and their children, so as to reduce conflicts and improve parent-child relationships.  

I led a service for a local Mind that delivered emotional wellbeing and mental health services in schools and colleges for children and young people aged 5-25, alongside training, information and advice for teachers and parents.  I then jointly managed the Anna Freud Centre’s service for children under 5, which focused on strengthening the parent-child relationship, as a means of supporting the socio-emotional development and wellbeing of babies and very young children.  

Before this period in my life, I lived in the Middle East / South West Asia for 7 years, working in the humanitarian sector.