Bigger Picture Disability Awareness Training

Who we are:
Bigger Picture Disability Awareness Training is run by Libby Webber, a practicing counsellor who has lived with a physical disability for many years. She runs Southsea Counselling, a private practice in Portsmouth, Hampshire.

How we view disability:
Our approach to disability awareness training comes from Libby's personal experience of living with disability and her professional training and practice as a therapist.

We view disability as something that is much more than just an individual's 'tragedy' or a 'social creation'; disability impacts on our thoughts and feelings, our physical bodies, and our social relationships with others, both close family/friends and strangers.

How disability is portrayed:
The way that disability is portrayed in the media, fairytales, and popular culture leads to disabled people feeling stereotyped and stigmatised, and this impacts on self-esteem and self-worth.

This, as much as the lack of access to services, buildings and the world of work (to name but three), can be as difficult to come to terms with as the reality of the disability itself.

Who we work with:
Bigger Picture works primarily with therapists and mental health practitioners to raise awareness of what it's like to live with a physical disability.

While therapists are taught to be empathic and non-judgemental in their work, they are not always fully aware of the deep-seated attitudes and assumptions that surround disability and disabled people, and this can get in the way of the therapeutic relationship.

What courses do you run:
We offer an online, 3-module continuing professional development course for counsellors and psychotherapists which covers topics such as stigma, identity, cultural representation, passing for able-bodied, therapist responsibility under the UK Equality Act and much more.

We also offer face to face workshops on living with physical disability. If you'd like to speak to Libby about delivering a course at your training centre, please contact us through this page, or via biggerpicture@southseacounselling.co.uk