Berkeley Free Clinic

Peer Counseling Collective

2339 Durant Avenue (at Dana) Berkeley, CA 94704

(510) 548-2744

Who are we?
We are a non-profit collective of community volunteers interested in providing free peer counseling to individuals in the community.


What is peer counseling?

Peers, not professionals
We are not psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychologists, social workers, or some other sort of professional counselor. We are peers, each one of us a unique individual with a unique background and experiences, who are trained in peer counseling at the Berkeley Free Clinic. Confidentiality is kept to within the collective.
Listening, not advice
We do not give our clients advice or tell them what to do in their lives. Instead, we listen actively to what our clients have to say and create a safe, secure, and confidential space for them to express their thoughts, concerns, feelings, emotions, and experiences. We believe that our clients as unique individuals know what is best for their own selves and so we try to empower them to define their own situations and experiences and to make decisions for themselves.
Empathy and understanding
By actively listening, we try to empathize with our clients. We try to understand their feelings and experiences from their perspective, not ours. By doing this, we can achieve greater communication with our clients about what they are going through and ask more informative questions to aid in self-reflection, self-exploration, and self-discovery.
Unconditional positive regard, not judgments
We do not judge our clients as "crazy", "immoral", "overly-emotional", "addicted", or any other stigma. We give unconditional positive regard such that our clients can be open with us and reveal whatever they want without having to worry about being thought of negatively. Unconditional positive regard also means validating our clients by acknowledging that it is okay for them to feel a particular way about something.
For Drop-In Counseling:
Come to the Berkeley Free Clinic at 6:45 PM on Wednesdays
Ongoing counseling may be arranged through drop-ins

Last Revised: 7/99