Me and my journey to counselling
I grew up in Edgware, Middlesex. When I qualified as a pharmacist, I moved to a home of my own in Hertfordshire, settled there, married and had two children. While we lived there I became involved with Anorexic Aid (which later as a result of a merger became part of Eating Disorders Association) I had always enjoyed working with people – from my school days, when I helped at a day centre for people with disabilities, through university, and then this involvement in the development of a self help network for people with eating distress and eating disorders. It was my decision to move from being a volunteer, to becoming a paid worker in that organisation which triggered a move to Buckinghamshire.
We lived in there for 20 years, during which time I found myself working with counsellors, and realised that I had a natural ability for counselling. Eventually I had a career change and qualified as a counsellor, establishing a private counselling and supervision practice. My passion for raising awareness about eating distress led to me developing multimedia resources for young people. I have extended this work since then to produce a CD, workshops and courses for therapists. The move to working with visual imagery was triggered by my own hearing loss and that experience has now led to my involvement with Hearing Link.
Me and my hearing loss
I was born with normal hearing, so learned to talk just like other young children, but I have a genetic defect which has meant that together with other symptoms I have been gradually losing my hearing since then. My hearing loss has been a gift as well as a burden. It has forced me to develop a sophisticated understanding of body language – an awareness of the ‘music behind the words, nuances conveyed in subtle ways and that does indeed enhance my ability to establish relational depth in counselling relationships. Far from being a barrier, clients tell me that my hearing loss doesn’t interfere with their experience at all and that if I had not explained about my hearing loss, they would not have known of it.
My counselling and supervision practice
More recently I have moved to the Peak District (to Tideswell in Derbyshire) which is an area I have frequented and loved over the last two decades. I now have a counselling and supervision practice in Tideswell, but have maintained a supervision practice in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire spending one week a month there. My lipreading ability together with advances in technology mean that I can now offer counselling by video call and also video call supervision for other counsellors in addition to some face-to-face appointments. This is a very exciting new dimension to my work.
If you want to know more about me and the services I offer, please do get in touch with me by sending a message to maureenschiller303@gmail.com. Alternatively, you can leave a message on my phone 07712186800, with your phone number spelt out slowly and clearly please, and I will phone you back as soon as I can.