About Shahna
Shahna Thurston works in a person-centred way that keeps the client at the heart of each session. She is Shahna Thurston, a BACP counsellor practising in the United Kingdom with five years of professional experience. She aims for calm, practical conversations that help people take small steps forward.
Her approach combines elements of client-centred work, mindfulness, and existential thinking. Sessions focus on what the person wants to change now, and on noticing patterns that hold them back.
How Shahna works
Practical tools and everyday skills are introduced when useful, so people leave with concrete ideas to try between sessions. Shahna supports people dealing with stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship problems. She also helps with addictions, grief, trauma and abuse, and difficulties with self-esteem and intimacy.
Other areas she addresses include sleep and eating concerns, anger, career stress, and coping with life changes. She works with a broad range of additional issues such as body image, attachment difficulties, blended family concerns, chronic illness and pain, caregiver stress, and compassion fatigue. Sessions may include talking, mindfulness exercises, and skills practice to build resilience and improve day-to-day coping.
Her style is warm and non-judgemental, focused on listening and practical support. People can expect a straightforward, steady pace and collaborative planning about what to work on. The emphasis is on finding what helps each person feel more able to manage their life.
Shahna lists 8 ways of working on the entry:
What Shahna works with
The areas below are the ones Shahna selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- 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
Training and background
| Register | BACP |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 5 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | United Kingdom |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Therapeutic approaches you can use online
Shahna draws on client-centred work to prioritise the person’s own goals and perspective. This approach means conversations focus on what matters to the individual, helping them make choices and notice what changes feel useful in day-to-day life.She also uses Dialectical Behaviour Therapy - DBT - style skills for emotion regulation and distress tolerance. These practical skills are helpful for intense emotions, relationship stress and patterns of behaviour that cause problems.
Existential ideas are woven in to help people consider meaning, values and life direction when they face big changes. That work suits people who are questioning priorities or feeling stuck by uncertainty.
Choosing the right mix of approaches is a shared process. Shahna will talk with each person about their needs, goals and preferences and agree together what to try. Adjustments are made as progress is reviewed so the plan fits the person and changes over time.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat or text-based messaging. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions need less bandwidth and can be easier to fit into a busy day. Live chat and messaging suit quick check-ins, brief support or when typing feels more comfortable. These options give more flexibility in how and when therapy happens for many people.
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Common questions
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A practical next step
Write down two things you would want to be different in six months. That is the most useful thing to bring to a first session, whoever it is with. If you would rather start now than keep reading, online sessions are the quickest route.
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