Qualifications/Experience

From the Minster Centre, London NW6, a highly respected training organisation in the UK, I have a MA in Integrative Psychotherapy and Counselling and a Post Graduate Diploma in Integrative Counselling. My dissertation research looked at absent fathers.

I am also part way through a training/certification process to work with couples using Emotionally Focussed Therapy for Couples.

I am a Registered Member of the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP). For more about this professional organisation see their website BACP Ethical Framework. I am accredited as a Psychotherapist with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and subscribe to their ethical framework, including the requirement to update my skills and knowledge on a yearly basis. You can find my name of their register here UKCP register.

‘Integrative’ means that I incorporate different theoretical psychotherapeutic understandings in my work with clients (psychodynamic, humanistic, existential, body psychotherapy, attachment  and relational) depending upon the presenting problem.  Additionally all of my life experience informs my counselling/therapy work, including my own experience as a client.

My clinical experience has been in primary care for the Low Cost Therapy Service NW6,  in a W1 London private practice and my own private practice. I have worked with a range of clients in these settings, presenting with various difficulties.

Background

Despite a career in Higher Education teaching creative students cultural theory (I have a BA Humanities and MA Art History) where I felt I was empowering others and enabling them to grow, and a yoga/meditation teacher training where I felt I could share the way this practice helps to keep mind/body/spirit healthy, I embarked on a counselling/psychotherapy training as I saw it as a unique way to engage with people. It is a deep and intimate form of contact with another human being. However, unlike personal intimate relationships a therapeutic relationship has boundaries: this means the therapeutic relationship will never become sexually intimate. Boundaries create the safety needed for the relationship to be respectful and trusting whilst being emotionally intimate.

As a client I have experienced Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Body Psychotherapy, Person Centred Counselling and Integrative Relational Body Psychotherapy. I have never had a ‘bad’ experience with a therapist although the first was challenging in its newness. Each experience was helpful at the time. Based on this, I can say with some confidence that what makes therapy successful is the relationship between client and therapist.

I have experienced the change that comes from committing to work with a therapist over a long period of time, with the self understanding and acceptance that come from this. However, this is not what everyone wants and you need to be ready for that. Sometimes we just need help to fire fight a problem.

Whilst I primarily offer integrative counselling/therapy, given my background in yoga and meditation, I also offer mindfulness either as part of a therapy session or as a series of 6-8 sessions focused on learning this skill and way of being. Mindfulness can help you to deal with anxiety, stress, depression. It can be a resource for coping with a fast paced city lifestyle. For more about the benefits of mindfulness see this link Mindfulness – NHS

A thought for the future …..

We live in a complex world, life at the level of the individual can be hard, but it is only individuals who can create change; firstly within themselves, and then in the world.

Call me on 07902922671 for an initial chat to see if I can help you