Weather the Storm Counselling and Psychotherapy

19/02/2026

🌿 New: Low-Cost Therapy Options 🌿

Right now, the cost of living crisis is affecting so many people — bringing added stress, worry, and emotional strain into everyday life. It can feel overwhelming, especially when support feels out of reach.

We strongly believe that therapy should be affordable and accessible, so we’re now offering a limited number of discounted therapy sessions for those on low incomes, because everyone deserves a space to be heard, supported, and understood. 💬

If you’ve been struggling or holding back from reaching out due to cost, we’re here.

✨ Get in contact to find out more, and please do feel free to share with anyone who you feel would benefit.

14/02/2026

A love that is worth having is worth building ♥️🧱

12/02/2026

Most people know about the Fight and Flight nervous system response, but there are also two others: Freeze and Fawn.

This image carefully breaks down each response and why we might be having them, even when we don't necessarily want to:

Credit to The Feeling Expert

12/02/2026

Please check your therapist is on a PSA accredited register, such as BACP, NCS or UKCP.

I am registered with BACP and you can verify my registration number 382971 😊

Is there a case for statutory regulation of therapy?

That was the question posed by today’s second session of the Commission for the Future of Counselling and Psychotherapy.

The online event reflected the range of views on this debate from those with lived experience of therapy, practising therapists and our members, and representatives of professional bodies and other relevant organisations, including the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) and the Psychotherapy and Counselling Union (PCU) .

It covered the current regulatory mechanisms for the professions in protecting clients, explored alternative models, highlighted the nuances of the arguments for and against regulation, and the impact this issue has on clients, therapists and the profession.

In the UK, anyone can say they’re a therapist without having registration or membership of a professional body. There’s no statutory regulation of therapy here.

However, the PSA’s accredited registers programme does exist – a voluntary scheme which accredits registers of healthcare professional bodies, so members of the public can be confident when choosing practitioners.

We always advise anyone seeking therapy to check the therapist is a member of a professional body that has a Professional Standards Authority (PSA) accredited register – such as BACP. This means they’re seeing a therapist who’s highly qualified and committed to high professional and ethical standards. It also means if they want to make a complaint there’s a process and support available.

There’s been increased interested in the topic of regulation of therapy from politicians and the media over the past year, although the government has said it has no plans to regulate therapy. If the government was to consider the introduction of regulation, we’d want to be involved in this to ensure it worked for therapists and clients.

So it’s vital we’re having conversations like today’s session to ensure a range of voices and evidence is taken into account.

Today’s event was the second of four evidence-gathering roundtable sessions for the Commission for the Future of Counselling and Psychotherapy that will result in a report of recommendations, developed by the co-Chairs in partnership with the PCPB, that will be released next year.

Find out more about the commission 👉 https://orlo.uk/EHapy

10/02/2026

Lovely local lady and events pianist! I'm always up for supporting local businesses, 😊

If you have a small business - it doesn't have to be wedding related - then like this post, follow my page, tag your business below and I will follow you back!
Let's all build each other up!

09/02/2026

We've had a rebrand!

All storms pass, but if you're feeling like you're weathering a storm right now, you don't have to weather it alone. ⛈️

Get in touch at bsimpsontherapy@gmail.com, phone/text/WhatsApp 07701072697 to find out more. 🌤️

Or to book a first appointment easy at the click of a button, follow the link below:

https://bishop-auckland-counselling-and-psychotherapy.square.site/?fbclid=IwdGRzaAP25FJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR6RmBvtyOegLkSQYgbhxcx9Vixu5l6s1v3SktYsOgIUYPfW847-U2KIXMHgJQ_aem_TGFxHO_TTsoa75PzqANZcA

09/02/2026

Anxiety after trauma is your nervous system being a little too overprotective. Danger was real at one time, and now it sees danger everywhere.
It's constantly negotiating with your brain:
“You’re safe.”
“Am I though?”
“Yes.”
“But what if—”

It’s exhausting.

If this is you, you’re not broken.
You adapted to survive.
Now it's time to teach your nervous system that safety is possible again.
Learn more with Acknowledge & Heal: A Women-Focused Guide to PTSD https://bit.ly/WomensGuidePTSD

24/01/2026

I now have an online booking calendar! Take a look through my availability and book an appointment much easier at the click of a button:

https://bishop-auckland-counselling-and-psychotherapy.square.site/?fbclid=IwdGRjcAPhgDtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR4vPgS3BVpG-Ezgx_Bep82W44UONBo87rA8N9EEevw_RG8dAPmXno_aG3GSUA_aem_v87e0-G5DfMl8xfvWBaC6A

19/01/2026

I know… we say it every year but we just need to remind you that Blue Monday was in fact made up by a travel company to sell more holidays 🥲 Depression doesn’t care what day it is. If you’re feeling low, we’re here for you 💙

14/01/2026

The complexities of Grief and Loss (a personal post)

Many people think that we only go through a grief process when we experience a bereavement such as the death of a loved one, but in fact, we can enter a grief process for many different reasons. This is because there are so many ways in which we can experience loss.

We can experience loss of the following things:
- Loss of sense of identity
- Loss of stability/security
- Loss of self worth or self esteem
- Loss of control (over self or a situation)
- Loss of community or belonging
- Loss of acceptance and understanding by others
- Loss of status (either personal or professional)
- Loss of connection or relationship with those who were important to us

We can even experience a sense of loss for things that we have never had, for example if we were raised in an environment that wasn't safe, was abusive and caused us pain and trauma, when we grow up to realise that wasn't the norm and that we deserved better we can feel a sense of loss that we have missed out on the things we should have had, but didn't get. Even if we manage to replace some of those things in other parts of our lives, the sense of loss can still remain.

Grief is complex and multi faceted, and can often have layers which can involve going through a grief process in the here and now intensely and which feels disproportionate to the current circumstances, but can in fact be re-triggering or resurfacing old unresolved trauma or old grief processes that haven't been fully able to run their course yet. We can also go through individual grief processes for each individual sense of loss.

Grief is experienced in stages: Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. To reach acceptance we must first go through the other stages, but this is none time limited and can happen in any order. It may even be that we go back and forth between stages before we move on to another one. It is not linear and very individual. We simply cannot force it or rush it.

I feel it's important to remember these things if you have thoughts you should be "done with" something by now, that you should be over it, that you should already have moved on or that you are taking too long. Sometimes it isn't just about "that one thing" and perhaps it's about so much more. Don't fall in to a trap of having unreasonable expectations of yourself or comparing yourself to others and how you perceive they might deal with things "better". These are just things we tell ourselves and have no factual basis. Some people may in fact just be very good at hiding their struggles and despite carrying things very well, still feel heavily.

I hope this post may be useful if anyone resonates or is experiencing/has experienced similar❤️

07/01/2026

https://youtu.be/joyFDpWlo-w?si=HReJjjns56jE-a04

23/10/2025