Lindsay Noakes Counselling

It has been called lots of different names in the years that I have worked with autism.

Autistic spectrum disorder,  Autistic spectrum condition  Asperger’s  

The label for me is something that helps me understand some of the challenges/struggles/confusion that may be or have been present, but it can never show me as much as someone telling me how their symptoms affect them.

 Whether you are 8 – 80 the neuro Diverge mind is unique to each and every person. There may be a cluster of similar struggles for people with ND but that only becomes present once I have built up a rapport with a client first.

I will always work with the symptoms that are creating barriers to the client and not society’s social norms.

I use lots of different techniques to work with a personal dialogue of difficulties and that can include sensory needs, intrusive thoughts, intense emotional expression or experience, social and communication development, and understanding.

Trauma is events that have created a physical survival response that may be appropriate or disproportionate to our environment or circumstances.

Working from the place of safety first and creating a secure relationship will allow you to progress with the events that have led you to this painful and unsettled world.

 Trauma can extend from experiences we go through as children and yet we still remember our childhood as ‘okay’

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a physical response to a situation that the brain struggles to process.

Trauma can be experienced in lots of different ways and I have different strategies that will reduce painful symptoms that are related to the experience. They can involve speaking or taking a non-verbal approach which helps to move the event to a place in the mind that is more able to help process than react.

It is all done at your pace.

Excessive use of a product or substance that creates a behavioral or physical response to feel, need or want to continue.

 This is not a rehabilitation unit  – I am not in charge of your substance use

I can give you informed information that will allow you to discover the avenues that you used to reach the difficulties that you find yourself in with the product or substance.

 Exploring conditioning attitudes and cultures linked to alcohol and drugs allows us to be aware of what choices we have now to make changes.

 Motivation does not just appear when we need it,  sometimes we need to see why it is relevant and then we find the determination to make more informed choices

What is Stress

 Response to a situation that a person perceives to be overwhelming in that the person does not think that they can meet the demands of the situation

Stress = overestimation of a situation + underestimation of resources/resilience to deal with said situation

 We all experience stressful situations, preparing for exams, preparing for a big event such as a wedding, moving home, or moving jobs. Add those to life and sometimes things can seem overwhelming.

This is a natural process but sometimes we need to learn how to reorganise things so we can see how we can regain some control and create some form of structure around the situation.

 Coping strategies, problem-solving skills, and solution-focused thinking can help find some new avenues to pursue.

Nothing can prepare us for the passing of a loved one even when we are expecting it.

It is a natural cycle that we step into and it can be confusing and overbearing.

 Whilst I cannot stop the pain, I can support you through this process and offer you some guidance about how it works and what to expect.

Sometimes we get stuck in a stage of grief that makes life difficult to manage and talking to someone who knows these stages has proven to be helpful.

 Being able to talk to someone who is not emotionally involved in the grief has been shown to be helpful in working through the grief.

This work can happen just after the death or it can happen years later, there is no full stop when this support can be useful. It just depends on when you feel is the right time for you.

This can look like any number of things and some may be classified as abuse and some might be deemed as insignificant experiences but any adverse childhood experience can have lasting effects on us. It is not how ‘bad’ society deems it, it is how it affected us at the time that is important.

Friendship issues are a huge barrier to forming healthy relationships and sometimes it is seemed only natural to have these problems. They can be overlooked by the adults at the time and those feelings of rejection, abandonment, and hurt can get left unresolved or heard.

 Likewise, abuse can be just as overlooked as it is such a difficult subject to speak about at the time or with family.

In counselling, you can speak openly and frankly about your experiences without fear or worry that you are going upset anyone or feel like the issue is ‘too small to be of worth.