“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life”
Mary Oliver, The Summer Day
About me - Jan Barfoot, DipCouns, MCouns, MBACP, BSc Hons, PhD
Areas I work within:
Anxiety and depression
Relationship and intimacy issues
Life changes and transitions
Infertility
Workplace issues, bullying and stress
Health-related issues (life changes following illness, chronic illness, menopause)
Burnout (special focus on academia, research intensive and university environments)
Student counselling
Trauma (including spiritual trauma)
Low self esteem, low self confidence
Family relationships and parenthood
Body image issues
I live and work in Edinburgh with 20+ years experience in research intensive environments and university teaching. I retrained as a psychotherapist later in my career and now split my time between university teaching and psychotherapy work.
I’ve always had a passion for supporting people to live their lives wholeheartedly, fully alive and with depth, and seek to do the same with my own life. But I know that sometimes life is beyond hard and that means we need to explore the darker places within us.
I work therapeutically to offer a warm, safe and grounded presence where you can have the space to speak openly about some of your most awe-inspiring and painful experiences. Peggy Natiello calls this type of therapeutic work as the work of offering a ‘passionate presence’ to people.
With my biology training, I work to integrate what is known about neurobiology with the impact of trauma on our bodies and brains. Being a trauma-informed practitioner is very important to me. Trauma is a complex subject and people’s experiences are diverse and unique. I will work to understand your particular experiences and adapt our work and the pacing of it sensitively to suit you.
I’m trained to work using both person-centred and pyschodynamic practice. This means I consider you to be at the centre of your therapeutic process. I work with what is happening in the present moment with you but will also bring curiosity and empathy towards how that might be impacted by your past experiences and upbringing.
If it is something a client wants, I can integrate mindfulness into our sessions to help the therapeutic process or as a practice to help clients support themselves when not in session. A favourite thing for nurturing my own wellness is mindfulness within and with nature. I’m an accredited mindfulness teacher with the UK College of Mindfulness Meditation and can incorporate this with my therapeutic work.
Professionally, I completed a postgraduate diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Edinburgh. I recently also completed my Masters in Counselling on Wild Therapy and Ecopsychotherapy also from the University of Edinburgh. I trained with the UK College of Mindful Meditation to become a Mindfulness Teacher. I am a registered member of BACP and COSCA and my work adheres to their ethical frameworks and codes of conduct which you can read here (BACP Ethical Framework and COSCA Ethics & Code of Practice). I am a member of the PVG (Protecting Vulnerable Groups) scheme in Scotland and registered as a data controller with the ICO.