Find peace and strength within
Transform Anxiety and Depression into Lasting Peace
Are you struggling with anxiety or depression? As a specialist online therapist, I help professionals like you overcome these challenges using evidence-based methods that deliver rapid, lasting results.
Why choose Joanna Traynor’s Counselling Zone,
for your Anxiety and Depression Treatment?
- • 20+ years of experience in transformative therapy & coaching
- • Specialist in relationship issues, including domestic violence
- • Specialist expertise in male mental health
- • 10+ years of experience working with Blue Light services
- • EMDR-qualified trauma therapist
- • Specialist in dealing with the impact of childhood abuse
- • Specialist in family estrangement, fostering and adoption
- • Evidence based approaches grounded in neuroscience
- • Flexible online sessions that fit your schedule
- • Accessible offices accessed via A38 in Devon
It’s great that so many people are now rapidly waking up to the value of having a deeper understanding of their brain, their psychology, and how the environment and people in it, can impact on their mental health.
THE COUNSELLING ZONE
By taking blame and shame off the table, my therapy provides time for clients to understand the science and value of compassion and self reflection. This is a ‘felt’ experience – not a science lesson.
With compassion leading the way, we, as human beings, can be more open to and therefore more capable of exploring improved strategies for life, going forward. That’s the foundation on which I work.
As Gil Scott Heron most famously said
“No matter how far wrong you’ve gone, you can always turn around.” (G.S. Heron, “I’m New Here’, 2010)
Busy people make mistakes
Having worked closely with police fire and ambulance services over the past ten years, I have a deep understanding of the unique challenges faced by busy people, often traumatised, and having to deal with stress, anxiety and depression. But I also know that working in a bank or a supermarket can be just as stressful, because it’s not just about work – it’s about life outside work too. Families, lovers, friends, debt, disease and disaster – whilst our loved one’s can provide us with comfort and joy in abundance, they can also be the source of great pain, anxiety and fear. We can all make mistakes. We can all fall down. And we can always feel like ‘we’re just not good enough’.
We can change that. Your journey to better mental health starts with a confidential consultation. Whether you’re facing workplace stress, relationship issues, or persistent anxiety and depression, I provide a direct, solution-focused approach that will deliver tangible results.
Ready to make a change?
Who am I?
My name is Joanna Traynor. I spent most of my adult life working in the creative industries, developing ICT solutions for creative professionals, writing novels, and producing TV for corporates, government departments and broadcasters. You can check my Wikipedia page here. Alongside this work, I also volunteered for the Samaritans, Rape Crisis and Bereavement Counselling Services. I am an Accredited BACP therapist and coach(IC), clinical supervisor and lecturer in counselling and psychotherapy. I also help organisations to dial down fear and to create healthy workplaces, to improve performance, productivity and wellbeing – this includes provision of Executive leadership development and mediation services. You can learn more about my work in organisations on the senseia website – click here.
As a private practitioner, I’m keen to support people who feel oppressed, bullied and side-lined. I am keen to work with neurodiverse and culturally diverse clients, to help normalise what can be a bewildering experience in a world of conformity and polarised opinions.
On a personal note, I grew up in care, and worked my way through my troubles, with some difficulty and success. I now find myself living this wonderful rewarding life as a psychotherapist and coach. So, if I can find diamonds in the rough of such an unpromising start in life – then I’m quite sure, anyone can.
Therapy & Coaching that’s Tailored to Your Needs
The boundaries between coaching and counselling can be blurred. I’m not a big fan of labels. My goal is to empower you to overcome your challenges. I want to help you find a way to achieve your goals – quickly.
If you’re after years and years of therapy – the Counselling Zone probably isn’t for you. It’s not that I rush things – my philosophy is simple:-
- To meet you where you’re at
- To help you see your problems as a consequence of a life lived
- To take blame and shame off the table,
- To give you a new lens to see the world through – a world you can feel safe in.
I have many tools to share with clients. I help clients to embody the power of these tools as a felt experience – not something to know about, but rather, a new way of being that feels authentic, safe and satisfying.
My goal is to help you find the confidence and self belief you need, to achieve peace of mind and to deliver on your potential.
Therapies rooted in neuroscience …
and not wishful thinking….
The truth is, therapy or coaching is only ever effective when your relationship with your coach/therapist is authentic, safe and focused on you. Without these core conditions, it doesn’t matter what tricks your therapist has up their sleeve – the intervention ‘won’t work’.
Integrative Coaching and Counselling
I combine a range of therapies and coaching techniques and approaches (Solution Focused Brief therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Transactional analysis, Neuroscience, Attachment theory, etc) to meet ‘your’ needs. Your needs are unique. No ‘one size’ can fit all, so it’s important you’re offered ways of working that fit with who you are and what you want to achieve. That said, it will be important for us to connect with each other – human to human. I’m not a fixer, I’m a facilitator who will listen to you, hear you and seek to understand you, at a profound level. I will provide you with tools and help you to use them, as best you can. Only if I really ‘hear your’ and you really ‘hear me’ will this process work.
EMDR Therapy
Eye Movement, Desensitisation and Reprocessing therapy is an effective NHS approved treatment for trauma and emotional distress. It’s particularly useful for ‘one off’ trauma’s that can have a devastating impact on your life, for example, accidents, diagnoses, assaults etc
Workplace Wellbeing
I’m an expert on psychodynamic dysfunction within organisations – basically, this means helping people to work better in teams, improving communication dynamics and dealing with conflict more effectively. Poor communications can inflict immeasurable damage to wellbeing in the workplace. My work with senseia within organisations has given me a depth of understanding of workplace dynamics, that is in itself, rare, deep and useful for helping individual clients deal with workplace stress.
The ‘WHY?’ of Poor Mental Wellbeing
From childhood to now, your brain has been collecting memories of pain to protect you from future harm. Yet, it doesn’t always get it right. Its main goal is survival, not happiness. Constantly scanning for threats, it keeps you alert. It holds onto the fears you experienced as a child, blending them with adolescent fears and the challenges you face today. Your brain isn’t great at prioritizing. When you’re overwhelmed, it struggles to accurately assess the level of threat you face. For example, someone stealing your parking spot on one day might feel as threatening as being confronted by someone with a bat on another. When burdened by countless responsibilities, regrets, shame, blame, and a tendency to catastrophize—in short, mental pain—the brain can get it wrong. Therapy and coaching offer tools to help you process your pain with grace and clarity. That’s why therapy is a gift—it allows you to live the life you really want for yourself – the life you deserve.
Offices with disabled access
Just off the A38, near Plympton, Devon.
Alternatively, I work on Zoom or Teams.
- Counselling and coaching sessions are £70 per 50 mins session.
- Concessions available
- Clinical Supervision is £80.00 per 50 mins session
- Concessions available for students and new practitioners.
Book a session today – get one step closer to a life-changing experience.
Complete the form and I’ll come back to you.
