What Clients Say

The Centre
The Acorn Centre offers a very important service locally.  Mindfulness is the new buzzword and at the Acorn Centre the importance of a strong, healthy mind for everyone, is front and centre.

The Setting
The Acorn’s setting as a therapy centre is discrete.  It exudes privacy on entering but, at the same time, the human face you meet is welcoming and you are greeted with a smile - I guess they take into account you might be nervous and try to put you at your ease.  My first point of contact with Acorn was a girl called Sonia who I had spoken to on the phone.  She was also the welcoming smile I met on attending my preliminary appointment.  During that initial chat Sonia was patient and friendly.  She had already explained how the counselling process works, and, the details of what that would involve in my particular family situation.  She is a very attentive listener.  The preliminary chat enables a facilitator to decide how best to assign a suitable counselor.  I found Sonia to be very professional and felt no judgement whatsoever as I spoke in detail.  She was calm and kind.

The surroundings in the Acorn Therapy Centre are immaculate - no clutter to distract the mind.  I feel that helps the process because often when you are upset, your mind already feels cluttered.  The therapy rooms I was in were light-filled, lots of free space around and very, very quiet - all things I found conducive to calming that cluttered mind.  In a word it was peaceful.  On my second appointment I sat in the little waiting room which is sweet and again, calm.  Water and forest sounds filled the space and were comforting.

Counselling
The counselor that was assigned to my family was a guy called Robbie. Robbie met me on my own first.  Like Sonia, Robbie is an extremely good listener.  I felt no judgement as I explained the detail of what bump in the road brought my family to the doors of Acorn.  He explained the boundaries of confidentiality around this counselling which involved my daughter and myself.  His style is open, relaxed but with and a ‘no-nonsense vibe’ I thought suited my family well.  He got to the heart of the matter very well.  He made it clear - or it felt clear - that he was focused on a mission to find a clear path out of the problem, working together towards a solution that I would be happy with for both me, and my family.  My daughter when asked says about counselling with Robbie that he was very understanding.

As a counselor I found Robbie has the ability to handle any raw emotions that come up with great sensitivity.  He guides you to the strength inside yourself, through that emotion, to a moment where you no longer feel unravelled.  From there knowing you now have an ally to help you get up and get on is empowering.  All that I just described takes time and effort, with stuff you have to work through but week by week you get to the goal, because it is a process.  Over those weeks as a counselor Robbie showed me tools I could use in any situation I will face at the different stages of family life.  I think those tools are the ‘right thinking and actions’ to have ready to apply in advance that will get you where you want to go.  Having them heightens my confidence in decision-making as a parent as I look forward.  I am not afraid.  I am very grateful to counselor Robbie for the work he did with my family and everyone at Acorn for all their help in every little way.  I recommend the Acorn Therapy Centre very highly.  It was excellent.

With gratitude,
Pauline

Having found Acorn whilst researching places that I could get the help I needed, I came across this wonderful place. A calm inviting atmosphere with incredibly caring workers. My counsellor helped me to overcome the worries and issues I had. I cannot fault the Acorn Therapy Centre for the help they gave me.

Hi, I believe that the centre is looking for some feed back from previous or current clients. I'm happy to give my experience as very helpful and encouraging. I see personally the centre like this one to be extremely important to have access to. Yours sincerely, Brian

I would like to commend Acorn Therapy Centre and its staff for the kind and open welcome offered to me at the begining of 2019. I was skeptical to say the least regarding counselling but hand on heart if it wasn't for the help with and understanding of my issues which I received from my counsellor, I don't think I would have survived. The whole atmosphere from the first telephone call through to the the first meeting with my counsellor, up to present day has given me a new purpose with which to live my life as best I can each day. I would like to thank all at the centre for that help and look forward to re-engaging once the present situation with Covid Virus has passed.

Hi my name is Cian and I am attending Acorn for addiction counselling. I find my counsellor to be very thorough, dedicated and insightful. My last course of useful counseling was as a fourteen year old and up until now I have found it very hard to find someone who was right for me. I've been in counselling for around 14-15 months now and still have a long way to go. I trust my counsellor with what I say and I find the counsellor's own past experiences very beneficial when working with mine. I find Acorn Therapy Centre to be a very great service and when finished would recommend it to someone else,
Kind regards,
Cian