Dinah Mears (MBACP)
Counsellor, Trainer and Supervisor Specialist Couples Counsellor
I started my career as a State Registered Nurse and then moved into community work running Family Support Groups and a Youth Club for Devon County Council. In 1993 I worked with the International Red Cross resettling traumatised refugee families to Devon from the war in Yugoslavia. I began my therapeutic training in 1999, alongside my role in a child protection team where I began to develop support services for parents and children.
While completing the Foundation and Clinical Practice Certificate in Family Therapy from Exeter University’s Department of Psychology, I spent 12 years working as a manager of Family Support Services in the field of Child Protection. I currently still provide regular reflective practice sessions for front line childcare workers in the South West.
During the last 20 years I have become a specialist consultant and trainer for Devon County Council on the subjects of Domestic Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse and Child Sexual Exploitation.
I trained and worked as a counsellor with Relate for 10 years, alongside developing my own private counselling practice. I designed and I teach the Advanced Specialist Diploma in Relationship Counselling at Heartwood College in Dartington, Devon. I qualified as a clinical supervisor in 2016 and now run a busy counselling practice in Exeter where I see couples, individuals, families, and supervisees.
Relationships are the core part of how we function in the world as human beings, and as such my curiosity about them is fundamental to the work that I do whether it is training, counselling or safeguarding work.
My counselling style is integrated, and I try to hold compassion with boundaries, allowing clients to explore relationships with self, and with others, in a safely held environment. Oh, and my consulting room is beautiful too, with floor to ceiling windows looking out onto a quiet secluded garden.
“Therapy isn’t about what you do know, but about what you can’t quite let yourself know. If we were transparent to ourselves then we wouldn’t need it”
Susie Orbach 2019
Holly Carter (MBACP)
I have enjoyed over a decade's experience working as a relationship counsellor and therapist with couples, individuals and families. I also work as a clinical supervisor and, alongside my private practice, I have worked for many years with Relate.
I have a Masters in Relationship Therapy, and I am a registered member of the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP). Prior to re-training in this field I worked for many years in London as a barrister, specialising in family law, and I have also trained and worked as a mediator.
Counselling and psychotherapy can offer a huge amount of support at any time when life has become unexpectedly challenging or complicated. Equally, it can simply provide a good space to explore and understand one's relationship with oneself and with those important people around us.
I am able to offer face to face counselling from an annex at my home, near Copplestone (Crediton), and I also work remotely via zoom, skype and the telephone. I am not currently working from Exeter.
In addition to seeing clients at regular intervals, be it weekly, fortnightly or monthly, I am also very interested in working intensively, when it feels like a time of crisis, or when there are geographical challenges which make some intensive sessions more manageable. Such work might provide for morning and afternoon sessions over two or three consecutive days.
Sessions are held in central Exeter, Devon
Sessions are also available via Skype
Counselling, Clinical and Supervison Training available
