I have six years experience as a qualified counsellor in drug and alcohol services, working with vulnerable people with a range of complex issues. My role included taking group therapy sessions and therapeutic workshops. However, the most rewarding aspect of my job was as focal counsellor supporting people in exploring and making sense of often traumatic and painful histories, and witnessing their journey towards a stable and fulfilling future.
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Working with the wider community over the past few years I have found that, though the details of people’s histories may differ, we all share a connecting thread of humanity and the need to feel accepted and understood. At times the ‘journey of life’ can be challenging, more so if you feel isolated and alone.
Before retraining as a counsellor, I facilitated a visiting prison support group for women with histories of domestic violence and addiction; I subsequently worked in the Looked After Children’s department of Bath's social services and volunteered in a teenage drop-in. The early part of my career was spent working in publishing, and education - the social policy unit at Bath University and a FE vocational college near London. In my free time I am an artist printmaker.
My approach is person-centred and integrative, drawing on training in CBT, MI and Mindfulness. I have a degree in Addictions Counselling and work to the code of ethics prescribed by the Federation of Drug & Alcohol Practitioners (FDAP Reg No 2075); I engage in regular personal clinical supervision, and am committed to a programme of CPD to safeguard the integrity of my practice.
Katrina Wallis-King
BA (Hons) FdSc Addictions Counselling
