Testimonials

I began working with Sue after a time of grief and loss that triggered intense anxiety. I remember telling Sue, “I don’t like who I am and I want to change”. At the start, I struggled to see how talking was going to change anything, but over the months we worked together, things began to gradually shift and I’m now in a much better place – I’ve found the real me again. Meeting with Sue was a gift. She gave me not only a listening ear but also compassion, understanding, a fresh perspective and some insights and tools that I have continued to use.

I undertook a counselling service with Oulton-Lee Counselling – after multiple friends encouraged me to meet with Sue – feeling suspicious and very nervous, as I was going through a very, very hard season of life.

When I look back, I entered the process a shell of a person and highly doubtful of talking therapies; I frankly didn’t see the point. But very quickly, physical anxiety aliments I’d put up with for years, disappeared – without any medical intervention! And overtime I felt a stirring within me; I had a zest and passion for life and my confidence returned.

Through Sue’s gentle and caring input, she indirectly guided me, showing me valuable life skills in our time together; enabling me to stand firmly on my feet again.

I cannot fully put into words how safe and ‘held’ Sue made me feel, when I look back at such a vulnerable period in my life.

Put simply, Sue’s guidance transformed my life. I am a stronger person because of the gentle unwavering support from Sue.

So, if you are reading this feeling anxious, nervous, sceptical … I’d encourage anyone to engage a service with Oulton-Lee Counselling. It might just be the best thing you do, not only for yourself …but also for your loved ones around you, in unlocking a better you even in the toughest of times!

I was so nervous searching for a counsellor. I needed someone who understood my faith but who wouldn’t judge my thoughts and feelings about my faith. I am glad I found Sue. She made me feel very safe, seen, understood and heard. I found out things about myself that were not even on my radar, and this has been a huge part of my healing. She safely navigated me when there were areas that had too painful to touch upon in the past. I began our sessions as a bit of a wreck to be honest, and after a much shorter time than expected, ended them feeling hopeful and free to be me.

I found the help I needed after struggling with the sudden loss of our perfectly healthy daughter. As a missionary in southern France, it was difficult trying to find counselling in English with someone with similar beliefs to me who could better understand me. It is hard to fully express the deep gratitude and respect I have for Sue and her work with me. It truly was an answer to prayer to find someone who could accompany me through my process of grief and healing who was as professional, patient, kind, understanding, and equipping as I found her to be. At Oulton-Lee Counselling I was able to have my sessions online at a distance. I move forward now not only in a much better place emotionally, mentally and physically, but I have also been given many tools and perspectives to face future situations and continue in my healing process, as in other ways I help others to do the same.

I sought out counselling after reaching a monumental birthday, having wrestled with disappointment and frustration for years. I found Sue on the ACC website as I wanted to have someone who understood my faith and how important it is to me yet also someone who understands the difficulties some of the Christian narratives can pose.

Sue has been an invaluable support for me these past several years, and my ability to cope and manage has grown immensely in that time. Her gentle and kind approach was just what I needed after wrestling with a lifetime of perfectionism and a fear of failure. She provided keen insight into my difficulties, helping me build my self-awareness and approach myself with gentleness.

Whilst also a counsellor myself, I’ve learned immensely from Sue’s approach and appreciate her impeccable professional manner. I have nothing but respect for this lovely lady who has an amazing gift to provide support and gentle guidance that has opened a whole new world to me. She’s truly been a gift of healing to me that I will always treasure.

I had been putting off going for counselling for a few years whilst yo-yoing with anxiety and depression. I knew that unless I dealt with what was causing it I would never be able to be free from it and flourish. I wasn’t really living, I was just existing and dragging myself through each day.

I met Sue and knew that she would be able to help me. Her manner is so full of grace and patience and she is the most non-judgemental person I have ever met! I had total permission to be myself and to speak without censure.

Sue helped me to tune into myself and see what was there. She gently asked perceptive questions and helped me to see patterns of thinking and behaviour that were not helping me. I was able to find more stability in my thinking and not succumb to anxious thoughts and doubts about myself so easily. I now feel happier, more positive and able to pursue what is important to me with courage.

Sue made me feel at ease at all times. She listened attentively to me, was very supportive and raised my awareness. By the end of our sessions, I felt more confident and reassured.
Thank you Sue for guiding me through some of life’s challenges.

Sue provided a very safe and non-judgemental space for my husband and I to heal our relationship. She helped us navigate situations that felt difficult to find solutions to and gave us the opportunity to see beyond our challenges. We were able to break our patterns and find resolution more easily in a short amount of time. We’re both grateful for Sue and her gentle, insightful spirit.

Sue provided a safe and professional environment – we can’t recommend her highly enough. Counselling is a brave step; one we are sure everyone would benefit from taking. We were given space to talk openly and honestly to help process and understand our pain.
Communication was clear throughout and we would encourage anyone to see Sue.

Our sessions with Sue helped us find our identity as a couple again. What we appreciated enormously was that each session started from our own individual experience and our own dynamics as a couple. She helped us reconnect through the understanding of our different ways of communicating, and really made us build on what we learnt. Besides understanding our way of being a couple better, she also improved our way of understanding ourselves as individuals. We felt very comfortable all the time and we are very, very grateful for her help.

From the initial consultation I was put at ease and made to feel welcome, comfortable and that my issues were worthwhile. Each session was conducted professionally yet with a friendly relaxed atmosphere, with Sue having valuable knowledge and expertise of how to support me and how I could address my inner battles. Sue listened, gave time for thinking and talking. And a challenge each week for me to consider! She allowed me to breathe.

I have the reassurance that the door is always open, however I have left believing I have the coping strategies and ability to move forward with confidence and without the weighty burden I have carried around for too many years.

I approached Sue for counselling in the year of my 50th birthday. I had struggled with anxiety on and off since my teens. It had affected many parts of my life and I decided that at 50 I deserved to do something about it.

We began our sessions online and whether online or as latterly in person I found Sue to be a gentle, compassionate and empowering counsellor with great professionalism.

During our sessions Sue helped me understand how things that happened when I was younger had shaped the way I reacted to things now. Together Sue and I found many threads that linked together.

I am so glad that I took the step to contact Sue. Together we explored the reasons why I might be anxious, some of the ways I had learned to behave to manage it and began to challenge and re learn new ways of approaching my anxiety.

It has been amazing to reach the natural end to our sessions and to feel the joy and freedom I had hoped for. I feel I now have the tools to manage anxious thinking in the future.

Sue’s kind, non-judgemental careful sessions allowed me to find a new way of being me!

I came to Sue with issues with my confidence following a traumatic few months in my workplace. She was immediately reassuring and took such care with me and really helped me to process my emotions. Not only this, but she also gently challenged me to take practical steps to help my reality and offered me practical tools to help with my mindset in the future.

I had a really good experience with Sue and would definitely recommend her to anyone needing a bit more support in their current season.

Some years after the loss of a child, I decided I needed some counselling again to deal with the trauma I was still sometimes experiencing. As I had previously seen Sue, I wanted and hoped to see her again for my counselling sessions following the compassion and understanding I received the first time around.

In my sessions with Sue, I felt nothing but heard, listened to, and understood. Nothing I said sounded too silly and all my comments were received with care and thoughtfulness.

My sessions with Sue have changed me as a person, I feel more whole and confident. My anxiety now feels more manageable and rational, and I no longer have constant niggling thoughts. I was able to talk through my trauma with Sue and felt at peace with the loss of our son.

I know Sue’s door is always open should I ever need to contact her and arrange some more sessions. My counselling sessions with Sue were invaluable and I am very grateful.

Having a weekly time where I feel safe and un-judged has led to wonderful breakthroughs, the depth of which continue to astound me. The gratitude that I feel for what counselling has helped to achieve in my life is hard to put into words. It has been life changing and has positively benefited the lives of those close to me.

From struggling with post-natal depression and crippling anxiety for the smallest of tasks my ability to deal with and genuinely enjoy every day life has hugely increased.

At the beginning of lockdown I realised that I felt overwhelmed by anxiety. My anxiety was nothing new, it had dogged me for many years and had robbed me of my confidence and self-esteem many times over. However, lockdown gave me the pause I needed to realise that things had to change. Sue, with her kindness, approachability, wisdom and professionalism, has been instrumental in bringing about that change.

Due to the pandemic I only ever met Sue over Skype, but even so she managed to create an atmosphere of safety and trust where I was able to be totally honest and open. With gentle and patient questioning Sue helped me to explore those things which were at the root of my anxiety and identify unhelpful patterns of thinking about myself. My counselling sessions with Sue have given me a fresh perspective on many things in my life and that is liberating.

Thank you Sue.

I came to Sue when I was feeling pretty desperate about my marriage. I couldn’t see a way forward that didn’t involve either finishing it or settling for an unhappy sham for the rest of my life.

Sue patiently and carefully helped me to unpick the tangles of my feelings and experiences. Sometimes she just asked one question, other times she picked up on a word I said or my body language which made me really examine what I had said and the reasons for it.

Over time, Sue helped me to find strategies and tools to improve communication and I started to see positive signs in my relationship with my husband. The exciting thing has been how he has responded to my efforts and I feel we now both see a future for our marriage and are willing to work at getting there.

My counselling journey has been an absolutely incredible, amazing and life changing experience.

For a long time, I’d been living with insecurities, fears and a lack of confidence and self-worth, not knowing who to talk to. As a Christian, I really wanted to find someone that understood my faith, who I could trust and confide in. Initially, I was sceptical, but, since the very first time I met with Sue, that soon changed. It’s an amazing experience and it does work!

Throughout all sessions, Sue offered encouragement, acceptance and support which gave me the freedom to be me and to understand myself in a totally different light.

I now feel a totally different person, strengthened and empowered to face each day with a new confidence, security, freedom and excitement about life, with the strength and ability to make decisions, choices and set boundaries for myself. I totally 100% recommend Sue’s counselling services to others.

I found my sessions with Sue extremely helpful. The approach was extremely supportive and engaging and I felt that progress was made in quite a short length of time. From the very first session I already found myself challenging my previous patterns of thoughts and behaviours. It was a dynamic and thought-provoking process and I always had plenty to reflect on between sessions. Sue was especially sensitive to how I was feeling during the sessions and allowed me space or to step away from topics if they were proving too difficult. She was very kind and respectful. It was especially wonderful to be able to have these conversations in an openly Christian manner, to share Bible verses together and to reflect on Christ’s example and the difference that made to my situation. These interactions were very much initiated by me and I was never under any pressure to consider things in this way, but that aspect made a huge difference for me and I think provides the real source for lasting change.

The patience, guidance and clarity that Sue brought to our sessions really helped us to understand each other. Her gentle approach enabled us to open up and our marriage is in a better place thanks to her support.

I arrived at Sue’s room rather unsure of what her counselling would entail and if it would help. I was soon put at ease by Sue’s relaxed yet professional approach. As I’ve had time to reflect on her counselling, the aspects that impressed me were that for each session I was reminded that this was my time, I could be myself, think and feel what I liked.

Sue helped me see the underlying causes for how I felt the way I did, what I would like to see, and how I might work towards those goals. She has helped me accept what can’t be changed and to believe in a quality of life which is possible. I rejoice to think of others asking for Sue’s services and finding hope to go out into their journey of life.

Following the break-up of my marriage, Sue helped me pick through and accept the many changes that this brought for me and my daughter.

Having a safe non-judgmental space to talk was a true lifeline. After a hard emotional week having a counselling session – no matter how tough the session – always left me feeling better. Sue genuinely understood the emotions and fears that I was going through.

Now 18 months on I have just had my last session with Sue and am a much stronger and happier person for it. I will be forever in Sue’s debt for helping me though this difficult time in my life. My one regret is I didn’t go to her sooner.

Sue has helped me tremendously with my life and helped me to resolve the difficult situation I was facing. Through our sessions, Sue gave me a place to rest and recover and the time to unravel the struggles I was having. Continued sessions helped me to reconstruct my thinking in a calm and positive way to overcome these difficulties.

With Sue’s continued support I was able to rebuild and move forwards.

I would highly recommend Sue to help with any relationship or life situations you are finding difficult.

I had my doubts about seeking counselling. I believed there to be a stigma attached and I was unsure of what to expect. I went to see Sue and the whole thing blew my mind. It was a relaxed environment and Sue was excellent. Totally unassuming and non-judgemental.

I learnt so much about the way I think and see the world. It also taught me to respect myself. I had a very positive experience and I would recommend it to anyone. It’s good to talk.

Sue is extremely professional, compassionate and knowledgeable. She provides a safe and calming environment within which intricate and often sensitive problems are untangled and addressed with care and understanding. We felt at ease immediately and throughout our weekly sessions. We cannot recommend her services enough.

Sue is a very professional, knowledgeable and caring counsellor. We had approximately ten sessions with Sue and found them to be very beneficial and ultimately they helped improve our communication.

Sue provides a relaxing and safe environment where we felt at ease, allowing us to discuss difficult and sensitive topics, which we probably wouldn’t have been able to do without her. We both felt the counselling to be positive and would highly recommend her.

Sue has been of vital health in my life. Her sessions helped me to understand myself and life better and have allowed me to make better and more informed decisions. She offered an emotionally and spiritually safe space for me to process and allowed me to become a more authentic version of myself.

Sue created a welcoming atmosphere, where I felt safe to share honestly and deeply. For me, my faith is an integral part of my life, and Sue was sensitive to this. She was open to including Christian truth, where I expressed it would be helpful. In each session I felt heard and understood, encouraged and gently challenged. I found counselling an incredibly valuable journey.

My sessions with Sue have been so transformative. Sue guides you to make your own realisations about yourself, without putting her opinion on to you, instead you are gently guided to come to that yourself.

With having PTSD, it was so important that I wasn’t re-traumatised, and with Sue that never happened. She very carefully and kindly helped me discuss very difficult memories and gently work through them at a safe pace.

I think Sue’s high level of emotional intelligence and genuine empathy makes her the very best counsellor of those I have seen.

I have left feeling resilient, strong and determined.

I have been through several kinds of counselling and CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) to try to counter anxiety and depression. The counselling I recently went through with Sue was different. Firstly, it was healing to know that I could speak about anything freely and without disapproval or judgement. Secondly, together we found that I could put away things from the past which I often beat myself up about, and accept that we all have human failings.

It was particularly important for me that, as a Christian, I could work through my problems with my faith.

Nearly ten years ago a hitherto long and happy marriage was nearly blown apart by my partner’s gender dysphoria. For several years it seemed that the only solution would be to split up, a situation we wanted to avoid as we both had a deep desire to stay married. So we decided to seek couples’ counselling. We chose Sue partly because she shares our faith perspective; since this is an important part of our lives it seemed necessary to have someone who would understand.

We went through a long journey with Sue, both in person and on Skype. The sessions provided us with a safe space in which to say things that would otherwise be difficult and through this process we were able to understand the situation and our own perspectives on it.

It was important to have a counsellor who would at no time ‘take sides’ or be more sympathetic to one partner than to the other, and Sue provided this. At no time did I feel any sense of judgment or disapproval but only a concern to uphold both of us and our relationship.

Even though we haven’t yet ‘solved the problem’ we have made immeasurable progress through couples’ counselling and the process has been immensely valuable.

During our 35 years of marriage we had never received professional counselling into our relationship. But we had become stuck in our relationship in recent months and were not able to resolve issues or move forward by ourselves. It was clear we needed someone to help us and discovered Sue through a Google search for Christian marriage counsellor.

Sue’s approach was gentle and tender with us in the midst of our hurt, anguish and pain. This created a safe place for us where we could sensitively explore the nature of past negative life experiences, which were having a damaging effect on our relationship. Sue gave us permission to explore our negative feelings with honesty and without condemnation. Our honest sharing with one another in Sue’s presence and with her insightful comments enabled us to understand the other’s experiences and feelings.

Sue gave helpful tools enabling us to dismantle negative cycles of behaviour and in turn helped us build positive responses toward each other. In the affirmative atmosphere that Sue created, understanding of one another developed and this then caused hope and trust to be built. It feels like our relationship has been recalibrated and we have been given helpful practical tools to grow together in a much more positive manner.

Sue is extremely compassionate, professional and understanding. She listens well and always asked pertinent and objective questions to help me put things into perspective and to see things in a different light. I was at a very low point when I came to see Sue and my sessions with her were always the highlight of the week, where I could openly discuss my thoughts and feelings without judgement.

As the sessions progressed, I could see improvements on my outlook with more positive thoughts of future plans. The environment Sue provides – both in the location and her approach – ensure a calming and relaxing atmosphere in which to truly open up, with the knowledge everything discussed is in total confidence.

Thanks to Sue I managed to break free from keeping myself hidden away and now look forward to waking up to a new day and looking to the future with optimism, confidence and positivity.

Thank you, Sue, for being there to listen, for your help and advice, the tools and encouragement to lead a happier and healthier life.

Initially I was nervous about attending counselling but I found the overall outcome excellent and I have an open door to return if I need further help. Thank you.

I was given a list of six different marriage counsellors as recommendations and out of all of them what drew me to Sue initially was her picture on the website as someone I could trust. I was not let down when we started our marriage counselling sessions on Zoom, where we immediately felt we were in a safe environment. Sue is very professional, genuinely caring, kind, and gentle. She helped us to go from feeling hopeless and stuck in our marriage to having hope. She has empowered us to make positive changes and has given us invaluable tools to help us in our marriage going forward. She has made a real impact on our lives.

We came to Sue for counselling as a relatively newly married couple. We had a traumatic experience in the build up to our wedding, and had struggled to process and move on from the family conflict and hurt that had happened in that highly stressful time. After trying to deal with these emotions and anger on my own, I realised it was having a negative impact on my husband and we really needed some professional help to work through the lingering pain.

It was so helpful that Sue approached each issue with a Christian viewpoint and was kind and compassionate which helped me recognise that my hurt was valid. We felt a sense of safety and non-judgement, and that we could be totally honest with our thoughts and feelings.

Sue was helpful in enabling us to have more of an understanding that the past does not have to define the present or the future, and setting positive challenges to encourage us to move on in our emotions and negative thinking. We highly recommend Sue.

We had a really positive experience of counselling with Sue. From the first session she made us feel really comfortable. I was a bit hesitant of having our meetings via Zoom but apart from a couple of technical difficulties which were outside of our control, the communication was not hindered by this format. Even when there were some technical difficulties, Sue maintained a really comfortable atmosphere.

We felt that Sue really helped us to communicate effectively during our sessions and we felt that we did make progress regarding the issue that we had originally sought counselling about. There were also some times where we had a few laughs together. Sue creates a friendly and welcoming atmosphere that puts you at ease straight away.

I was having some personal issues concerning my family and life style. I was unsure who to turn to when I sought the help of Sue Garner, a specialist counsellor in the issues that I was facing. She was great at listening and the sessions were very relaxed, flexible and catered to my needs, which made it reassuring and comfortable for me to speak.

I would like to thank Sue for her help and I can say since her sessions I am very happy and content with how things are going. I would highly recommend her counselling service to anyone.

The counselling has improved our relationship tremendously. It’s almost like magic. Of course, not all problems that we had and still have can be immediately solved, but I think we’ve found a way of dealing with difficult situations that come up and always will because that’s part of every human relationship.

Overall, we have learnt to communicate better and compromise and we believe that things can only get better from now on.

We initially booked six sessions with Sue but we found her approach extremely helpful, and continued for much longer than that. Sue’s room was a safe haven where emotions could be shared and issues explored under her sensitive guidance.

The counselling has clarified the need to reduce external commitments and so provide more time for our marriage to “flourish”.

For one of us, the key issues were personal identity and self-confidence. For the other, insight into handicaps from the past, and challenges about relationship roles.

Sue has given us many excellent tools to improve communication and to find balance in married life.