Workshops and Events
Mood Boost
The Student Counselling & Mental Health Advice Service will be running our Mood Boost course again this semester.
This 4-week course is designed for people who experience low mood and would like to learn techniques to manage it better, whilst connecting with other
students who are experiencing similar challenges.
The Mood Boost course is an opportunity to learn new skills and tools which you can use to feel happier, more relaxed and confident, and less sad, irritated, or worried. The course includes information about low mood, how to set realistic goals, ways to get a better balance of activities in your life, ways to manage unhelpful thoughts, and how to improve your general wellbeing.
The course is based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which is an effective evidence-based intervention for low mood and will be led by two of our Student Counsellors.
The course is delivered online via Microsoft Teams Platform over four consecutive Wednesday afternoons from 2:00 - 3:30pm. This is a 4-week course and participants will need to commit to attending all four sessions in order to fully benefit from and complete the course. If you are unable to attend all 4 dates listed below, please wait until the next course is delivered.
Certificates of attendance will be awarded to all those completing the course.
What students are saying:
‘The two instructors are lovely, calm, open to answering all questions and very comforting’
‘Hearing everyone’s experiences really did make me feel like I’m not alone’
‘The course had a welcoming and feel good vibe’
‘I would recommend to anyone wanting to learn techniques on how to improve their mood’
‘I always knew I wasn’t the only one struggling with low mood at Imperial, but there’s a big difference between knowing that you’re not alone and feeling like you’re not alone’
Course dates
Course 1 - 2022
All course dates run on Wednesdays from 2-3:30pm:
Course 1:
- 2nd February
- 9th February
- 16th February
- 23rd February
Participants will need to commit to attending all four sessions in order to fully benefit from and complete the course.
THIS COURSE IS NOW FULLY BOOKED.
Course 2 - 2022
All course dates run on Wednesdays from 2-3:30pm:
Course 2:
- 25th May
- 1st June
- 8th June
- 15th June
Participants will need to commit to attending all four sessions in order to fully benefit from and complete the course.
Get to know the facilitators
Leigh Ivens Townsend, Student Counsellor
I am a qualified Integrative Psychotherapist and have worked in higher education counselling and mental health services for the past 7 years. I am a registered and accredited member of the UK Council of Psychotherapy and have experience in offering therapy within the NHS primary care context, the charitable sector as well as my own private practice. Prior to training as a Psychotherapist, I spent 10 years working with vulnerable client groups offering mental health support and advocacy in a variety of settings including the refugee sector and the women’s sector.
When working with clients, I aim to create a warm, respectful, and collaborative relationship where they can feel comfortable to explore the issues or challenges that have led them to seek support. I see counselling and psychotherapy as an opportunity to increase self-awareness, develop new healthier ways of coping with and managing difficulties, and an opportunity for personal growth.
I am delighted to be co-facilitating the Mood Boost course and to offer the opportunity for students to develop new skills and tools for managing their mood and mental wellbeing.
Jasmin Han, Student Counsellor
I am a UKCP accredited psychotherapist working both here at Imperial College and in private practice. I have been working as a counsellor for over 7 years now, with much of my experience working specifically in student mental health, allowing me to become more aware of the particular challenges commonly faced by students. My background is in systemic therapy and much of my private work has also been in helping families, couples, and individuals to better understand their relationships with one another. I do my best to provide a safe and non-judgemental space to help my clients explore their understanding of themselves, their beliefs, and their patterns of behaviour, so that we might make some sense of and better organize those difficult thoughts and feelings that seem to keep going round and round, keeping you stuck.
In my work, I’m interested in exploring relationships and attachments and how these inform both the way we say ourselves as well as what we see as important. These fundamental beliefs often then influence how we react to situations, what we tell ourselves, how we feel, and what decisions we make. I often find that while these learned ways of thinking may have helped us through a situation in the past, they can sometimes start to get in the way as our needs and values begin to shift. I’m looking forward to facilitating this Mood Boost course as I think it will be a useful opportunity to reflect on what your core beliefs are and how you usually respond to situations/problems, and perhaps develop other tools and ways of thinking to help you forge new and more helpful patterns.
Upcoming Workshops
Mindfulness Meditation
Do you want to learn a way to increase self-awareness & resilience? Improve your working memory? Improve sleep? Reduce anxiety & depression? Research studies indicate that Mindfulness does all of this and more. Come along and try it out at this experiential online workshop.
“The present is the only time that any of us have to be alive - to know anything - to perceive - to learn - to change - to heal. Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgementally, to the unfolding of experience, moment by moment.”
Jon Kabat Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living
Dates of upcoming Mindfulness Meditation Workshops:
- Monday 9th May 4-6pm
Sleep Well
This one hour workshop is suitable for students who would like to begin to change unhelpful sleeping habits. The Workshop aims to help improve sleep and to allow students to start thinking about a new sleep routine in general terms. There is no expectation to discuss any personal sleep problems, but some interaction is encouraged. The sessions will be led by our Student Counsellor Ulla Cameron and our Study Mentor Mary Fitzgerald. The workshop is 1.5 hours long.
Dates of upcoming Sleep Well workshops - coming soon
Procrastination
Many of us put off important tasks and end up rushing towards (or missing) deadlines and we just don’t know why. Why can’t we just ‘get it done’? The reasons for and methods we use to procrastinate are often varied and individual. There is no straightforward answer but in this short workshop we give you the space to begin to explore how to manage your tendencies to procrastinate. The workshop is interactive so please don’t sign up unless you can find a private, quiet space to turn on your camera and microphone and engage in this experiential learning experience.
Dates of upcoming Procrastination workshops - coming soon
Managing Stress
The Managing Stress Workshop aims to help you understand the characteristics of and triggers for your stress and enable you to increase your understanding of how you might manage your stress differently. This is an experiential workshop that we hope will help you gain insights about yourself that you can apply throughout your time at Imperial and beyond. We invite anyone who is interested to join us.
Dates of upcoming Managing Stress Workshops - coming soon