Ansari Counselling Story

After completing my humanistic counselling training at The Metanoia Institute, I decided to take some time to reflect on what I had learnt about myself and consider how I wanted to approach my counselling career. During this time I travelled to India where I engaged in a Buddhist retreat and encountered new perspectives of how to approach supporting myself and other people with acceptance and compassion using a wisdom and understanding of how things truly are. I also stayed with a very inspirational couple and their family during my travels who embodied such a strong sense of warmth and kindness to others. This couples' family name was Ansari which is a Muslim name meaning friend or supporter. As this meaning encapsulated some of the qualities I wanted to bring into my counselling work along with the acceptance, compassion and warmth that I had also experienced from these people and during my travels, I decided to ask this couple for their blessing to use the name for my counselling practice.