About Us
About our organisation
The Harbour is a small charity with a huge vision – that people in Bristol and the surrounding areas have a safe space to talk and be listened to as they face death, dying and bereavement. We provide psychodynamic counselling sessions, allowing space, time and freedom for people to explore the often-complex feelings around grief.
Our dedicated, professional therapists provide a safe space for people to talk and be listened to when they have been bereaved and when they face their own life-threatening illness or the life-threatening illness of someone they are close to.
Whether you are personally experiencing an illness, supporting someone who is, or coming to terms with a bereavement, The Harbour is here to help. We believe it is important to help our clients in finding their own ways to come to terms with their experiences.
Our Passion
We have provided over 40,000 counselling sessions since The Harbour was founded by Jill Brown in 1992. Each year we help people with a variety of experiences relating to a life-threatening illness. Our team of therapists at The Harbour believe that each of our clients’ experiences are unique, and for that reason we provide relationship-based, specialist support.
We do not believe in strategies, or good and bad ways of responding to these experiences. Instead, we believe the opportunity to talk with an experienced therapist can empower clients to find ways of talking about and working through their situation. In counselling, clients have the opportunity to confront their most challenging responses to death, dying and bereavement.
Many of our clients have told us that building a trusting, therapeutic relationship with a therapist has enabled them to share their most uncomfortable emotions. Last year, 99% of our clients rated their relationship with their therapist as good or excellent. We aim to recognise that an individual’s response to being affected by a life-threatening illness might bring up feelings that might be difficult to share with family and friends. The Harbour provides a space where these feelings are validated and legitimised.
I reached out to The Harbour when I was very low, the weekly sessions have allowed me to help myself on the grieving process.
Having somewhere safe to talk about lots of feelings and emotions and have a better understanding of how I can best continue to work through this when the counselling has come to an end.