Jade Taylor Counsellor

'People are just as wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don't find myself saying, "Soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color." I don't do that. I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch it with awe as it unfolds.' - Carl Rogers

Get To Know Me

Who am I?

I am an individual like you, and I am different. I have lived and healed through my own experiences: I have been where you are, and I have been through my own personal therapeutic journey.

As well as being a therapist since 2006, I have had a parallel career supporting vulnerable children, young people and families. While this was rewarding and I gained an amazing amount of experience working with neurodiversity and varied behavioural challenges, the teamwork and misunderstanding about who I am, was quite damaging overall. See my blog about being an AuDHD person surviving employment.

After I qualified as a counsellor, I worked for MIND for many years before setting up my private practice in 2010. In 2015 I took a break from counselling to grieve a significant personal loss. I am so focused on ensuring I do a good job for everyone I support; I knew stepping back and taking care of myself was necessary at that time. I couldn't have held another to the standard they deserved. After a year, I returned, and in 2018, I returned back to full-time private practice. Since then, we have navigated COVID-19, adapted to online and outdoor working while continuing my studies to become a PhD student and become recognised as a NCS Senior Accrtediated Practitioner (the highest standard of counselling professional). What ups and downs!

As far as my neurodiversity? It was rather obvious and openly acknowledged that I had ADHD since I was a child. However, we did not have the information that we do now, and so we had little awareness of what that would mean regarding mental health, hormones, or academic burnout. Never mind the invisible navigation of being an unrecognised autistic girl. There is no doubt about it; my ADHD camouflaged my autism. But now, looking back, it was so very obvious, if we had known what to look for, of course. And so, like so many others, I am a late-diagnosed autistic person; I found out over ten years ago, and finding out and learning about what it means, who I am and how I now take care of myself has been a game changer. Like you, I have had to process how it could have been if I had known. So undoubtedly, I understand.