About Shahna
Shahna Thurston is a counsellor who draws on client-centred and existential ideas to guide conversations. She works in an approachable, non-judgemental way that helps people talk through stress, anxiety, addictions, bereavement and relationship problems. Shahna uses practical techniques to manage emotions and to help clients make sense of difficult experiences.
She holds BACP accreditation, and has five years of professional experience in the United Kingdom. Her background includes using mindfulness and skills-based strategies to support people dealing with trauma, low self-esteem, eating and sleeping difficulties, and career or life changes.
Background and approach
This makes her comfortable helping people facing a wide range of concerns, including compassion fatigue, ADHD and grief. Sessions focus on the person’s goals. Shahna blends conversational reflection with clear, teachable skills so people leave with tools they can use between meetings.
She aims to help clients notice patterns, test different ways of coping, and build steady routines that suit their life. Shahna also works with issues connected to attachment and abandonment, blended family dynamics, body image and chronic illness. She explains ideas plainly and encourages practical steps tailored to each person’s situation.
Her style is collaborative. Clients set priorities and Shahna adapts her approach as those priorities change. The emphasis is on small, achievable progress that adds up over time.
How therapeutic approaches translate to online care
Client-Centred Therapy places the person’s experience at the heart of sessions and values empathy and listening; online sessions follow the same idea by focusing on what matters most to the individual and shaping conversation around their goals. Dialectical Behavior Therapy - DBT - combines emotional skills training with practical techniques for handling intense feelings and improving communication; it can be used online to teach and practise grounding, emotion regulation and distress tolerance. Mindfulness Therapy brings attention to the present moment and simple awareness exercises that reduce rumination and stress, and these exercises can be led in a video or text format and practised between sessions.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Shahna will talk with each person about their needs, goals and preferences and suggest ways of working together. The process is collaborative, with room to try different tools and adjust methods as things change.
Online formats offered include video calls, phone sessions, live chat and text-based messaging. Video calls are useful for in-depth conversation and exercises that benefit from visual cues. Phone sessions can be a good option when bandwidth is limited or when a quieter check-in is needed. Live chat and messaging allow shorter check-ins, ongoing reflection and written exercises between weekly meetings. These options make it easier to fit therapy around work, caring responsibilities and daily life.
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Trichotillomania
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed
- Languages
- English
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