Lydia Pell
Higher Education Consultant, Supervisor and Art Psychotherapist
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Are you working in Higher Education and supporting students with complex difficulties?
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Are you an academic or senior leader without a background in mental health but your role means you manage critical incidents and students with mental health difficulties?
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Are you someone looking for your own wellbeing support or clinical supervision?
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Or are you an organisation looking for some help with developing your strategy around mental health and wellbeing?
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If so then I may be able to help.
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I am a HCPC registered Art Psychotherapist, and I have significant experience as a senior higher education leader, a supervisor and a Mental Health Advisor.
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I am able to use coaching and motivational approaches for people who want a solution focused approach, and can also work psychodynamically both with and without art making.
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I am trained in offering support online and via the telephone as well as in person.
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My goal is to help those who are in supporting roles, stay well, in order to continue being able to support others. I can best achieve this through through offering consultancy to organisations as a whole organisation approach, in addition to offering individual psychotherapy and coaching.
“To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible.”
Irvin D. Yalom
How do I work?
My approach to individual psychotherapy, supervision and coaching
I am trained as an Art Psychotherapist, where a client is able to use art in a session to help with talking about their difficulties and to gain more meaning than may be found through talking alone.
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I have also worked for the past 12 years with the student population, whose needs are often time focused. They don't always have the luxury, or psychological space to enter into a reflective relationship to think about their deeper concerns.
This has developed my personal style of working that suits my personality, in line with my training and works well for the clients I support. I work with the approach that I may only meet you once. For a number of reasons some people don't return for a second session of support, and so if I only have this one session to help you, I think about how I can help you find the internal resources that will enable you to make the first step of a longer journey that you may take alone.
I aim to support you to get unstuck with difficulties in your life. I also try not to be too serious. I have found in the past that a lot of therapists and counsellors behave differently in the therapy room, which aims to be neutral ( because of what they have learned in their training/theories) but the result for many clients is that they find this way of interacting unnerving and possibly pretentious, and they don't know how to interact. I try to bring more of myself into the therapy and supervision space. This doesn't mean I will tell you about my problems, or overload you with information about me - the space is still meant to be yours! - but I will bring my own experiences into the conversation where asked, and will allow you to get to know the real me. I also like to think I bring humour, where appropriate into the session, as humour is well known to be a helpful mechanism for us to manage the hardest parts of being a human.
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I would describe my approach as integrative, which means that I use all the training and theory that I think will fit your circumstances best, and I am able to be adaptable and flexible to meet your needs.
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I have had previous clients tell me that I have a compassionate no nonsense approach. I like this summary that suggests I am working with you in a kind way, but am not going to shy away from being straight talking.
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I work particularly well with people who are not sure about having counselling or therapy because I am open to exploring with you what approach and support may be most useful for you. I am open to you asking questions not only about my approach, but also that of other counsellors, and external services.
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I am happy to offer single sessions of 90 minutes, short solution focused 20 minute sessions, brief work or longer term support.
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My session rate is currently £60 for 50 minutes. I am able to offer a small number of clients reduced rates.
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Learn about my approach to supervision
I am able to provide supervision to anyone working as a Mental Health mentor or advisor, and am happy to offer small group supervision as an option for anyone who needs a reduced cost, and can see the benefits of thinking collectively about professional practice.
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I am also offering supervision to managers and leaders of student services and academics, who feel that they would benefit from a reflective and supportive confidential space to discuss issues relating to managing teams, critical incidents with students, and organisational dynamics that impact on their worklife and issues where your own history may impact on work. If you think you may want to discuss significant areas relating to your personal life in addition to work then psychotherapy may be more appropriate than supervision. This is something we can discuss in an initial meeting.
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My current rates for supervision are offered at a discount of £40 for self funded clients, and £60 for clients funded by organisations.
Learn about my approach to consultancy
I have worked for a number of large organisations, leading on their development of mental health and wellbeing services and advising on strategy.
I am a trustee for a national mental health charity and membership organisation and was the Chair of Trustees of this organisation throughout its period of significant growth.
I am trusted within the Higher Education Sector for being a transparent and honest sounding board for Senior Managers to approach for guidance and as such have supported a number of universities with their development of mental health and wellbeing plans for staff and students.
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Sadly I have also experienced working within organisations when they have tasked consultants to write reports and recommendations that are not in touch with the reality of the front line staff, the student experience, or the budget of the organisation, and leave behind dissatisfied senior managers unable to put into place the recommendations, a workforce that feels even less acknowledged, and students not seeing the aspirational change that was promised to them.
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In order to avoid this happening I schedule in a lot of time to meet with the workforce before meeting senior managers to get a sense of the culture of the organisation, and what change approaches would be most effective. I am also able to bring in additional experts if I feel that some of the work requires people with different skills or experience to me.
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I am available to offer consultancy for organisations that are seriously committed to developing whole organisational approaches for their employees ans students. This would involve an initial brief consultation where I would get a sense of the culture of your organisation and the goals you are hoping to achieve. I would then provide a summary plan with detailed activity and the full costing of what my recommendations would be for the required piece of work.
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My day rate is currently £300 plus expenses. My initial consultation would be £150 covering a one hour meeting with key stakeholders that I would identify and the summary report.
Queries and ways to contact me
Please use this form for brief queries about the services I offer or email me directly. Please don't send confidential information in this form, just briefly outline whether you are looking for individual support or my consultancy services. If you would like to have sessions with me I will send you a referral form with password protection to ensure your confidentiality is maintained.
