Im Rod Boothroyd, an experienced counsellor, life coach and group facilitator. I work in Frome, Somerset, with individual clients and mixed gender workshops.
I also run mens workshops, details of which you can find here: mens work.
For clients who cannot see me in person I can offer phone or Skype sessions.
Like many people in the field of personal development, I came into this work because of my own emotional crisis. Round about the age of 40 I experienced what Id call a midlife crisis which is more a crisis of identity, purpose, and lack of vision for the future.
I sought counselling, and after a year talking about my feelings I will admit I felt quite a bit better at least a lot of my emotional tension had been released! But of course the fundamental problems which had drawn me into this crisis were still there: a lack of a sense of purpose, a lack of a clear identity, and some pretty unhelpful behaviour patterns and ways of being in the world.
So I signed up for four-year training in Transactional Analysis psychotherapy , and within weeks I realised Id found my passion.
This wasnt just because the therapy work was helping me rediscover my true self and grow into emotional maturity. It was more about the possibilities I saw opening up or myself and others.
Possibilities which included a vision of people living from a place of love and compassion, and personal power and strength, rather than from a place of negativity and limitation.
I was fortunate enough to work with two extraordinary counsellors and therapists over a period of several years during and after my training course. The gifts I received from knowing them were priceless. By working alongside men of such profound understanding, something Id call Grace began to infuse my approach to therapy and counselling. (I dont use that word in a religious sense; p erhaps what I mean here is an openheartedness, a sense of compassion and maybe love. See this to read more about this concept . )
I learned a lot from these two mentors and I bring much of their openhearted approach to therapy and counselling to my own work as a therapeutic counsellor.
For me, personal growth and development, no matter what techniques are used, is always about bringing somebody into connection with their power and potential, their capacity to lead their own lives in the direction they truly want to go.
Im not saying I experienced this transformation overnight or even in a few years. Rather, I had a sense of being constantly on the move towards true leadership in my own life. To be able to say that Im doing something valuable in the world has made all the difference to my vision of my life and my sense of purpose.
I learned a lot working with the ManKind Project, a global organisation devoted to the development of the mature masculine. And through leading workshops with men in this organisation, and through leading my own workshops, Ive come to see that nothing can stand in the way of a man or woman who is focused on their vision of their life as they want it to be.
Permanent Change Is The Goal!
And Ive also realised over the years, through watching people like Tony Robbins and Jack Canfield, that willpower alone is not enough to bring about lasting change.
In fact, most behavioural change techniques are really a placebo, a sticking plaster on the deeper emotional wounds or issues which really control our behaviour and limit the expression of our full power in the world. These wounds are held in the unconscious and often we are completely unaware of them. Yet they control all that we are, both positive and negative.
Exploring ways in which the unconscious mind holds our limitations, how it controls what we show of ourselves in the world, has been the final link in the chain for me. In fact this approach made all the difference to me and indeed it will make all the difference to you.
Thats because releasing unconscious blocks is the way to access your most vital emotional energy and physical energy. As I see it, only then can your true nature be liberated and expressed more fully in your life.
The Shadow and the Unconscious
This is certainly a process which has transformed my life. Im a fan of what I now call Emotional Process Work working with the shadow unconscious, the repressed thoughts and feelings, desires and behaviour, the beliefs and fears, which are the most limiting aspect of our humanity, both individually and collectively.
However, its a mistake to think that the shadow contains only negative energy theres a lot of negative energy there, for sure, and when released it can give people a profound sense of change in their lives.
But theres also a massive amount of what we call golden energy in the unconscious. This is all of the human potential for good which has never been expressed, all of your personal power thats been repressed by circumstance and experience and releasing this can really transform your life. Then you will see how success, happiness and love are your birthright and how easy they are to achieve!
Certainly, for me this approach has made all the difference, and the success, happiness and love it has brought me is the reason Im so passionate about this work.
Whether in one-to-one counselling work or group work, exploring your shadow can make all the difference to the success and happiness of your life and it can do it much faster than talking therapy alone. If youd like to read more about the shadow in the unconscious mind, just click here.
So between the age of 40 when my midlife crisis descended upon me, and now at the age of 60, my life has been pretty much a constant exploration of both my own self-development and also the techniques which can be used to help others follow a similar path to self-fulfilment.
Now, as a counsellor, I bring all these gifts to the world, and, should you wish to work with me, hopefully I can bring them to you as well, in a partnership which will last for as long as we work together.
With best wishes
Rod Boothroyd
My office is conveniently located near the railway station in Frome, which gives easy access for counselling clients from Bristol, Bath, Trowbridge, Westbury, Bradford on Avon and further afield. We can also work by telephone if that suits you better. Counselling by phone works well with archetypal counselling because much of the work is done using imagination and visualisation.