My service will offer you a safe space to breath and explore your difficulties. You will be listened to and supported to identify ways of addressing your concerns and develop strategies to cope with distressing emotional and psychological effects. Your data will be kept securely according to data protection guidelines.
All work will be carried out by a qualified HCPC registered, BPS and BABCP accredited consultant.
You will be individually assessed, and treatment plan formulated to suit your idiosyncratic needs using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), psychodynamic, humanistic and Cognitive Analytic therapies (CAT) models. Each of these has a different theory and ideas underpinning it, and the therapists and counsellors using each will approach problems and issues in different ways. These three main approaches each support a number of individual therapies. You will also be supported to return work, to manage substances interfering with your work and will be coached to set goals for future wellbeing.
I offer Psychology, psychotherapy, counselling, coaching and mentoring where you are able to explore emotions, relationships, and thought patterns in a safe and supportive space. I also work with in-depth long-term difficulties focussing on unconscious processes for long lasting changes. I am trained in evidence-based approaches specifically CBT, ACT with 18 years of experience working with complex mental health conditions previously in the NHS education and specialist services. I currently help individuals, couples and groups who feel they can no longer manage their problems on their own. It may sometimes feel as if your problem is getting worse and you think life is not worth living or that you feel your emotion is causing you pain and dealing with others is causing you distress. CBT, counselling and mentoring can help you understand what is bothering you, understand yourself better and make new choices.
I work within a confidential setting and i am bound by law to keep issues private. In addition i will listen to what you have to say non judgmentally and with respect. We will work together to help you to feel better and so you can feel safe again.
CBT is about how you think about yourself, the world and other people. How what you do affects your thoughts and feelings. Person Centred Counselling is an assessment of need that puts you at the centre of the process and is based on your views, choices and preferences.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) can help you to change how you think ("Cognitive") and what you do ("Behaviour") to make you think better and feel better. Instead of focussing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind NOW. CBT has been found to be helpful in Anxiety, Depression, Panic, Agoraphobia, Social phobia, Bulimia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder and Schizophrenia. CBT can help you to break vicious circle. CBT can help make you feel good, better and think well. CBT can help you to learn things to help you cope with your problems yourself.
I will help you break each problem down into its separate parts and may ask you to keep a diary to identify your individual patterns of thoughts, emotions, bodily feelings and actions.
Together we will look at your thoughts, feelings and behaviours to work out:
The strength of CBT is that you can continue to practise and develop your skills even after the sessions have finished. This makes it less likely that your symptoms or problems will return.
My main concern is with your wellbeing. I provide brief Intensive Counselling which will allow you to experience a quiet, personal reflection while facing issues deep within the heart. This atmosphere will enable you to understand who you are and how the events of your life have shaped your relationship with yourself, others and the world. The sessions are for those who are finding it difficult at work and at home in any area of life e.g. marriage, school, parenting, work, and relationship. All counselling is private and confidential for individuals or couples. I do not only identify your problems but will help you find solutions and create an atmosphere that will lead to change in the shortest amount of time.
You will usually meet with me for between 5 and 20, weekly, or fortnightly, sessions.
Each session will last between 30 and 60 minutes.
In the first 2-4 sessions, I will check that you can use this sort of treatment and you will check that you feel comfortable with it.
CBT can help you to change how you think ("Cognitive") and what you do ("Behaviour") to make you think better and feel better. Instead of focussing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind NOW.
CBT has been found to be helpful in Anxiety, Depression, Panic, Agoraphobia, Social phobia, Bulimia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder and Schizophrenia.
CBT can help you to break vicious circle.
CBT can help make you feel good, better and think well.
CBT can help you to learn things to help you cope with your problems yourself.
This therapy draws on childhood and early experiences including unconscious conflicts to help understand your present difficulty emotions. Psychodynamic therapy explores and identifies patterns of behaviours and interactions that are deemed unhelpful.
This therapy will also help people with depression identify and address problems in their relationships with family, partners and friends. The idea is that poor relationships with people in your life can leave you feeling depressed which will in turn. make your relationships with other people worse leading you to feel more depressed.
This therapy views the relationship between the therapist and the client is vital to understand and work through the relationship difficulties and emotional difficulties.
Psychodynamic therapy is useful in managing deep seated and rooted disorders and emotional difficulties, when someone seems to have lost life's meaning, difficulty forming and maintaining lasting personal relationships. This therapy can also help with addictions, eating disorders and some social anxiety disorders.
You will be encouraged to speak freely about current issues, fears, dreams, fantasies, desires that hold you back or keep you stuck and powerless. The aim is to increase self-esteem, develop a sense of self, increased coping, resilience and improved and satisfying relationships.
You know yourself better, I do not profess to know you more than you know yourself. What I will do is to make every attempt to foster an environment in which you can encounter ‘yourself’ and become more intimate with your own thoughts, feelings and meanings. The idea behind this approach is that psychological disturbance occurs when your ‘self-concept’ begins to clash with immediate personal experience such as when the evidence of what you feel or do clashes with what you think you ‘ought’ to be feeling are doing. This sometimes happen when your positive view of yourself depends on the positive judgments of others. In other words, you feel worthy only when others are happy or satisfied with you. So as long as rely on a self-concept designed that meets the needs of others as opposed to yourself you will find that you are unhappy in many ways.
This approach maintains that three core conditions provide a climate conducive to growth and therapeutic change.
This means that your will be able to explore all thoughts and feelings, positive or negative, without danger of rejection or condemnation. You will have the freedom to explore and to express yourself in any way you wish without having to meet any particular ‘acceptable’ standards and I will be genuinely interested in what you have to say to become the person that you really are and not others want you to be!
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) draws on mindfulness and behaviour activations (BA) to encourage clients to increase the ability to engage in value-based, positive behaviours while experiencing difficult thoughts, emotions or sensations. According to ACT, psychological problems and distressed are caused by avoidance and an inability or difficulty in detaching from painful experiences. Fixating on these painful experiences which leads to a failure to take much needed action in suitable to your core values.
These steps will lead to take positive action, reduce unhelpful thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Reduce distressing psychological symptoms, increase coping and reduced stress. This is because ACT focusses on 6 core processes: Firstly
Call: +44 07340965241
Email: EDBconsultancyservices@gmail.com
I have been privileged to work with Dr Elvera Ballo as a psychotherapist and career Coach. As a psychologist Elvera is skilled in assessment and treatment of anxiety disorders and emotional difficulties. As a career coach and mentor Elvera works meticulously with integrity, honesty and creativity to help others grow and develop. I was extremely satisfied with her skills, knowledge and attitude to her client work and her ability to communicate her theories which helped me to understand my difficulties. She is loyal, kind and a pleasure to work with.
Michael Harden
Mental Health: Wellbeing, Enablement and Advocacy.I have worked with many therapists until I met Dr Ballo, she listened to me and then helped me to understand my problems. I didn’t really understand myself until a formulation was completed, then we set some goals and worked towards these. She treated me with respect and didn’t promise anything, but I could see that she really wanted to help me which made me want to help myself. I must say that I was very satisfied with her service. I recommend this service 100%.
Tamara Lawson
AnonI had couples counselling with Dr Ballo and at the time felt that my marriage was over when I sought help. She helped me talk through my problems before asking my husband to join us. She encouraged us to work our issues, then, we learned to trust each other, we learned to listen to each other and we learned to let go of past hurts by talking through them. We are now working towards celebrating out 12th anniversary and want to thank this lovely lady who made us feel comfortable and safe, she is full of love and trated us with respect.
AT & PK
AnonI am full of praise and admiration for this lady and I can't stress to you how much of a help she was. At first, I wasn’t sure if telephone therapy would work for me but on our first session together, I was amazed at how much calmer I felt after it. I'm also amazed at her knowledge, skill, professionalism- I was fascinated with her intelligence and knowledge of resolving trauma, anxiety, depersonalisation and depression. During our sessions, I lost count of the times I said to her, 'thank god- someone who understands me - you just totally get me!' This was so reassuring - it’s so difficult to find people who actually understand anxiety. When I'd finished a session with her, I'd be looking forward to the next one every time. Elvera helped me to understand 'me' better, my behaviours, thinking errors and how my past childhood traumas tied in with everything I was going through. A smart lady with a warm and caring personality - that's for sure. I'm not 100% and still have some work to do and it's likely I'll call Elvera again in the future for some follow up sessions. However, I'm almost there and this is thanks to you.
I had a course of CBT therapy via telephone & skype with Elvera for 15 weeks, as well some extra refresher sessions in the months afterwards. I was really not in a good place when I started the sessions with her, with major problems with Anxiety, Panic Attacks & Derealisation. But over the course of the sessions, she helped me to realise how my mind & body was working and reacting to different thoughts, situations and sensations. Even helping me to realise that other health problems I had were connected with my anxiety as well. She did this in a very patient & kind manner, listening to my anxieties & worries and helping me to work out where they were coming from and how to change them or understand them better, so I am not too scared when it starts. She always came across as a genuinely nice person, who wants to help people to help themselves get better. I can't thank her enough for the time, knowledge and understanding and I would recommend her to anyone who is in a similar situation. ps I've been reading some books you recommended, and they have really helped me, one that has helped especially is 'Feel the fear and do it anyway' by Susan Jeffers, it added to the things we discussed and helped me to look at myself in a different light. :-)