Francesca Lo Verso

Vegan Therapist and Counselor in Scotland

Welcome

Hi! My name is Francesca, and I work relationally as a person-centred counsellor, supervisor and trainer.

I strive to have an inclusive practice, which means I continuously challenge my prejudices, biases and privileges while actively making space for those conversations in my personal and professional life.

I work in a cultural-sensitive and intersectional way. I welcome people of diverse genders, sexualities, identities, relationships, lifestyles and practices, regardless of faith, ethnicity, age, ability and the body you live in.

In the work together, I will be mindful of the language I use by also being led by the words you use to describe your experiences and who you are. Whether we work from my office space or indoors, I’ll engage us in conversation on how the space can be physically comfortable for you.

You are welcome to look around my website, and if you feel drawn to connect, get in touch.

What I do

Counselling

Short-term counselling–

• Weekly counselling sessions with a focus topic in mind
• 12 sessions (review at sessions 4 and 8)
• Suitable for overcoming a crisis or untangling current issues

Long-term psychotherapy-

• 12+ therapy sessions
• Suitable for exploring core issues, trauma work, identifying patterns

Focused ecotherapy session

• 30-minute zoom call to organise the work together, including contracting and setting up goals
• One 1-hour-30-minute therapeutic outdoor session using nature-inspired exercises tailored to you
• Suitable for exploring one area that is causing you distress and looking at ways forward

Therapy issues

• Change and loss
• Relationship issues
• Cultural issues and identity
• Depression
• Shame and guilt
• Loneliness
• Body image
• Relationship with food
• Self-esteem
• Anxiety
• Overwhelm by own thoughts and feelings
• Trauma
• Dissociative processes and voice-hearing
• Alcohol and substance use

MY APPROACH

Ground

Grounding is ongoing, focusing on it at the beginning of our work together.

As a trauma-informed therapist, I will prioritise your safety, how to recognise it and create it for yourself as part of our work together before exploring what else is there. I will do this by listening to and believing you, and how you make sense of your distress beyond any diagnosis you may have. We will also look at your resources and strengths to create strategies to support you during our work together. This will feel like turning down the volume of overwhelm when looking at your experiences, making it safer for you to explore them further.

Explore

In our work together, I will support you to understand your experiences by looking at your relationship with yourself, noticing what is happening to you in the present moment and how your life has developed. I will pay particular attention to how systems of oppression, power dynamics and privileges have impacted your distress.

There are different ways this will happen in the session: through supportive exploratory questions and an embodied practice (gently attuning to your body to develop further awareness).

Integrate

Grounding and exploring allow you to create space for new information to surface. In our work together, I will also ensure that you feel supported in processing and integrating the old and the new whilst learning how to trust yourself more.

Outdoors

Outdoor therapy

• Short-term counselling or long-term psychotherapy
• From two urban parks in Glasgow (city centre and southside)
• Walking and talking, sitting, standing still – suitable for all ability, please enquire to find out more

Focused ecotherapy session

• 30-minute zoom call to organise the work together, including contracting and setting up goals
• One 1-hour-30-minute therapeutic outdoor session using nature-inspired exercises tailored to you
• Suitable for exploring one area that is causing you distress and look at ways forward

Supervision

• Ongoing supervision outdoors with the possibility of sessions from my Glasgow office or online when needed
• Or ad-hoc supervision on outdoor work (suitable for exploring your work as an outdoor therapist/ecotherapist)
• Suitable for qualified therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, ecotherapists and psychologists

A nature-led approach

A nature-led approach has many layers.

The most external one attunes to nature’s seasonal changes and the rolling of days and nights, paying attention to how the natural ecosystem affects our way of being, energy levels, and capacity to stay focused.

A second layer looks at our internal seasons and how we transition from one stage of our life to another.

Going deeper, a nature-led approach is mindful of the ebbs and flows of everyday life and how we move, anchor or resist these states.

Nature being an inter-connected web of living beings, I would be mindful of how your network looks like. Are your roots solid? What is replenishing you in the way the rain does with the soil? What threats exist in your environment? What internal mechanism have you developed to cope?