Counselling offers an opportunity to talk about your concerns or share your problems with a trained counsellor in weekly one-to-one sessions. Counselling helps by providing you with a safe environment in which to explore anything that may be giving you cause for concern.
The Counselling Service is here to help you to look at problems of a personal and emotional nature that may be interfering with your ability to study. If something is weighing on your mind, concerning or confusing you, it might be the right time to share it with a counsellor. Moreover the Counselling Service recognises that as individuals we experience the world uniquely and diversely so there are no ‘qualifying problems’ or ‘experiences’ that you need to have if you want to use the Service.
If you are unsure if you need counselling or if another service would be more appropriate please see our guide.
Confidentiality is very important to us. Both the fact that you see a counsellor, as well as the information you give to a counsellor is confidential. This information will not be divulged to anyone without your written permission. However there are some exceptions to this - please download our Data Protection and Confidentiality Policy (PDF, 145KB) for more information.
For face-to-face meetings we are located in a private and discrete space within the Student Life Building. Meetings take place in individual meeting rooms.
We recommend that students first meet with a Wellbeing Advisor who will guide you to the most suitable support based on your needs. Find out more and book an appointment. Alternatively, you can contact the Counselling Service directly to arrange an appointment.
The first appointment will be an initial telephone consultation which will last about 30 minutes. This consultation is a chance for you to describe what is concerning you with a counsellor and an opportunity for you discuss your needs. We will then be able to discuss with you whether or not counselling would be beneficial for you.
Please note
The Counselling Service is not an emergency service, for any emergency please visit our crisis page.
You can expect confidentiality, a non-judgmental attitude and respect from your counsellor. You can expect your counsellor to respond to you sensitively and honestly, and to work together with you to build a trusting and supportive relationship.
In return, you will need to make a commitment to the counselling process by keeping appointments and inform us, with all possible notice, if you are unable to do so. Counselling is conducted in an atmosphere of mutual respect, non-violence and respect for LJMU property.
Making changes requires hard work, honesty, commitment and personal responsibility. Counselling provides the framework to allow changes but you have to provide the energy, effort and will.
The Counselling Service is an organisational member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and subscribes to their Code of Ethics and Practice. For details of this please visit the BACP website.
The Counselling Service at LJMU is currently working with two clinically approved stakeholders, Silvercloud and Compass. This partnership compliments and extends our therapeutic offer to meet the needs of our students. Working together also helps us to reduce waiting times to ensure students receive timely support, based upon the resources available.
What this means for students: students who are referred into the service will still be able to access counselling, but this will not necessarily be delivered by the LJMU Counselling Service. The counselling team will decide whether Silvercloud or Compass is more suitable to meet the needs and requirements of the individual student.
Silvercloud is a digital mental health and wellbeing platform that can help you to better manage your health and wellbeing. This allows you to access clinically approved resources wherever and whenever is most convenient to you.
Compass works with qualified counsellors – who like ourselves are members of national registering bodies for the counselling professions. The offer is equivalent to the offer from the Counselling Service at LJMU.
Suitability is based on a number of factors including availability, and whether the student is able to access session’s face to face, phone or video and also nature of support a student needs.
