EMOTIONAL SUPPORT Finding

With more open conversations around mental health in healthcare settings and a host of apps and helplines, learning about and attending therapy should be more accessible than ever before, but for disabled people there is one glaring issue: often, counsellors have no frame of reference or training around disability, making it harder to use a service that can truly help and support you.

This gap is something that Helen Rutherford, a qualified counsellor, knew she had to fill. Helen is 45, has spinal muscular atrophy, and is a full-time electric wheelchair user.

“Living with a progressive neurovascular disease brought many challenges in my own life and when I was younger, I always felt like an outsider, like I didn’t belong,” shares Helen. “I wasn’t able to relate with anyone about my own experiences as I didn’t know anyone else who was disabled at the time.”

When Helen was in her 20s, her health issues lead to a number of major surgeries, leaving her isolated and very unwell. Becoming a qualified counsellor helped Helen to work through these feelings, and to find her career path.

“I kind of lost my own identity to my illness,” reveals Helen. “Becoming a therapist was part of my process of really coming back from that difficult time because it really challenged me on how I felt and I got to know myself better. It really helped me feel confident in myself and happier in my own skin.”

At the age of 29, Helen embarked on her second degree, becoming a qualified counsellor. Since then, she’s launched a disability-led counselling service, Emotional Respite.

Specialist

Helen has witnessed the stigma around therapy and counselling diminish over the years, a positive shift that has aided so many people in accessing worthwhile support, and having a service that is tailored to meet disabled people’s needs is a huge step forward. This wasn’t always the case: when Helen first qualified, she struggled to even find accessible premises to work in, further highlighting the lack of disability awareness in this space.

“I’d often have to travel much further to access work placements,” reveals Helen. “I thought to myself, if I can’t access mental health services as the person delivering it, then the people who want to use them can’t access the services.”

After researching specialist provisions in her area, Helen couldn’t find anything, and in 2014, Emotional Respite was created. Originally a private practice with a specialism in disability and illness. The service is available online, offering video and audio therapy, as well as email therapy. In the pandemic, the demand became overwhelming for Helen as an individual, and so she set up the Disability Counselling Group on Facebook for people who are disabled themselves and working as therapists, or for therapists who specialise in disability. She quickly formed a team of counsellors who have lived experience of disability.

“I felt that it was really important to focus on it being a disabilityled service so that there were strong levels of empathy and understanding,” explains Helen. “When I first started, I had clients come to me who had never come across a service like us before, they told me about having to explain a lot of the circumstances around their disability in therapy.

“I think that we cut through that because we kind of get it, we have this frame of reference that is learnt by our own experiences, that isn’t something that is taught during your training.”

Barriers

As an online service, Emotional Respite is an accessible option, removing multiple barriers for disabled people.

“It’s about making a service that’s inclusive and accessible for everybody, using technology removes a number of barriers to therapy including making it possible to access it from home, taking away things like travel costs, the headache of planning your journey, or relying on somebody else to take you to your appointment,” states Helen. “I also considered the cost to somebody’s health because personally, I can really relate to spoon theory, and it might take up a lot of spoons to go to an appointment.”

“One of the main things it creates is privacy for individuals who might not ever really experience privacy,” adds Helen. “I know myself from having personal assistants for the past 27 years, that with 24-hour care it’s difficult to have that space to have appointments on your own.

“This is something having an online service really promotes: it gives the opportunity for individuals to have autonomy and I think that’s quite empowering.”

Investment

While therapy can be extremely beneficial, Helen understands that it isn’t always easy to take that first step.

“I want to acknowledge that its daunting to go to therapy for the first time if you don’t know what to expect,” empathises Helen. “Therapy is an investment in yourself, it can be part of your self-care and looking after your overall wellbeing.

“When living with a disability, there are many challenges that exacerbate things like stress and anxiety, so it’s important to know how to allow your body to process that.”

For someone who often feels isolated in their experiences, seeing a counsellor who understands the barriers that disable you can make a big difference.

“Therapy can facilitate positive change and help you learn positive coping strategies, to build better relationships with others and reduce stress and anxiety,” highlights Helen. “It can give you the space to process your emotions rather than internalise them because that’s not helpful: it’s not coping, it’s just surviving.”

For anyone worried about attending a session, Helen would encourage them to reach out and ask questions, she says: “There’s no commitment to it, you can have one session and try it and if it’s not for you then you don’t have an obligation to continue. We do an initial assessment and within that we can discuss a client’s worries about coming to therapy.”

With long waiting lists to access talking therapies through the NHS, the cost of counselling may be a concern.

“It was really important for us to reduce the cost of therapy where we can, because we want to make it as affordable as possible,” explains Helen. “If people are in receipt of direct payments, they can use part of that budget to pay for therapy. I don’t think that’s something people are really aware of. It’s part of their holistic care needs.

“I know we’re going through really difficult times with the economy right now and I know a lot of the clients we work with receive benefits. When they’ve done an initial assessment, we can even provide a letter recommending therapy and they can then have a conversation with a social worker.”

For More Information

To reach out for support, or to learn more about Emotional Respite and the services they provide, visit www.emotionalrespite.co.uk