Supporting Clients through Life Transitions

In this lecture, you will learn from counsellor and trainer Emma Chapman what life transitions are, how they might impact clients, and how counselling can help clients to move through them. By the end of the lecture, you can expect to be able to:

  • describe what is a life transition is
  • recognise the different types of life transitions
  • understand how and why life transitions can affect people differently
  • explain the possible positive and negative impacts of life transitions.
Supporting Clients Through Life Transitions - CPD lecture for counsellors

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Emma begins by looking at what life transitions are, and listing some common types of life transitions, focusing in particular on psychosocial transitions.

Drawing on research in this felid, Emma then turns to the transition process, looking at the three key phases of endings, neutral zones, and beginnings. She applies this to counselling practice, and shares her knowledge and experience of how best to support clients in these.

You will learn about the different impacts of three main types of transitions, noting that perception is key, and that assumptions can be dangerous.

The lecture links in well with the importance of encouraging clients to practise good self-care, and Emma presents a model that you can use to assess clients’ resilience and vulnerability as they face life transitions.

At the end of the lecture, you will be given a list of six references for further reading research into this important topic that forms such a fundamental part of human life – and so is relevant to many (if not all) client presentations.

About the Lecture Presenter

Emma Chapman Counsellor CPD Lecture

Emma Chapman is a counsellor and trainer working in private counselling practice in Cheshire.  In her Northwich office, she works with adults, young people and couples.

Emma believes that having good mental health is the key to having a fulfilled and happy life.  As a passionate advocate for mental health, Emma also delivers mental health training to a variety of audiences across the North West of England.

Emma is a qualified teacher who came to counselling later on in life after 15 years of working in the public sector and charity roles.  During this time she worked with vulnerable children, adults and families in teaching, family support, safeguarding and pastoral roles.

After so many years working with children and families who often struggled to manage day-to-day life, Emma began to observe that poor mental health and trauma played a huge part in keeping people stuck in damaging patterns of behaviour.

This conclusion led her to further training in mental health, and she started her counsellor training in 2014 at Mid-Cheshire College studying part-time.  In 2018 she completed an MA in Clinical Counselling at Chester University.

Emma has experience working in an NHS IAPT setting but decided to work privately in order to work with her clients more creatively.

After a short spell teaching counselling at a local college, Emma continued to put her teaching skills to use and further develop some training packages for fellow counsellors, educational settings and businesses.

As a mother of two children, Emma struggled with her own mental health after becoming a Mother. In 2019 she had her research into maternal mental health published in the journal of Crisis, Illness and Loss*.  She now specialises in working with mothers experiencing perinatal mental health difficulties in her private practice.

Following some time working at a charity dedicated to the prevention of suicide, it became clear to Emma that there was little therapeutic support for those experiencing suicidal ideation.

In her private practice, she also works with people who are experiencing Suicidal Thoughts and delivers suicide awareness training to counsellors and other organisations across the North West.

'An Exploration of the Ways in Which Feelings of “Maternal Ambivalence” Affect Some Women.'  Emma Chapman, Peter M. Gubi, 2019.