SPIRITUAL healer and counsellor from Church Langley is setting up her own healing centre in Chingford.o

Carol Fogel, 52, is a qualified counsellor who has worked locally for many years helping a vast range of people with a vast range of problems.

But Carol is also well known for her skills as a spiritual healer, something she discovered she could do when she was much younger and living in Redbridge.

From helping a person with an aching elbow to working her magic on a bad neck hours before a wedding, Carol started to build up a reputation as having healing hands.

Numerous people began to approach Carol merely because of word-of-mouth, but she was only too happy to help them for free. Even then Carol had ambitions of continuing her training and continuing to help people but by becoming an accredited and qualified counsellor.

She said: "I became so busy with healing that I didn't have time to step back for anything else so I made the decision to stop it, it was difficult but I wanted to become a qualified counsellor.

"For me helping people feels right and it felt right to expand sideways and qualify in counselling."

So Carol started working with a bereavement support group in Redbridge which eventually led to her starting a long course in counselling when she was 48.

This she graduated from two years ago and now Carol has worked in various fields including working at St Clare Hospice, for the Samaritans, and at Church Langley Medical Practice as a practice counsellor.

"I felt it was important for me to get a grounding in everything," Carol explained. "Counselling for me is about loss, that is how I sum it up. Loss of a relationship, loss of health, loss of self-esteem, it can be anything.

"I hate the phrase helping people, that is not what I do, I stand shoulder to shoulder with them on their journey."

Some of Carol's counselling at the moment is centred around the second Gulf War. Several of her patients have parents or spouses out in the Gulf and have come to Carol for help in coming to terms with the situation.

She is now getting the call to start healing again, and although she is adamant she will not giving up her counselling work, she has plans to open a new healing centre in Chingford for one or two days a week.

Her patients of old have not forgotten her healing hands and Carol says they often call her asking if she is working as a healer again.

Indeed Carol says calls have already come in from France and Italy.

"I feel the need to reopen the healing clinic. There's just something that's telling me it's the time to do it, although I shall not be dropping the counselling completely."

Carol gets a lot of support from her husband, Martin, and is optimistic about the future of her new centre, which she is planning to open soon. She hopes to work Monday afternoons and evenings to begin with.

For more information about what The Healing Centre in Chingford can offer, ring Carol on 07799 644149.

April 28, 2003 14:30