Pleased to meet you…

I am a qualified therapist and am registered with BACP (MBACP), which is the main accreditation body for counsellors and psychotherapists in the U.K. My therapy and counselling qualifications include:

  • BSc Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Approaches (1st class with honours)

  • Advanced Post Graduate Diploma in Humanistic Integrative Counselling

  • Diploma in Humanistic Integrative Counselling

  • Certificate in Counselling

I have worked with individuals who are experiencing many different issues with their mental health, including depression, anxiety, relationship problems, trauma, bereavement, compulsive behaviour and addiction. Many of these issues have their roots in childhood and in the rules we learn in our early years about how the world works and how we expect people to behave towards us.

I can offer you a safe, non-judgemental space to expore these beliefs about the world that you may not even realise you hold. To learn more about how I work and the style of therapy I offer, please take a look at my Therapy Services page.

My Journey

As with many therapists, my journey began with my own personal counselling. I can still remember the mix of fear and scepticism that I felt as I sat down for my first therapy session and I keep this at the front of my mind when meeting with new clients. It was actually through experiencing the transformative potential of counselling first-hand that I decided to retrain to become a therapist so that I could be a part of other people’s journey to recovery in the same way that my therapist had been a part of mine.

I truly believe in the power of talking therapy to help people get through the most difficult times in their lives. This belief comes firstly through my own experience, but is also reinforced by decades of scientific research that has shown how helpful it can be.

Before training to be a therapist, I worked for many years as a sound engineer in film and theatre. When I decided to become a therapist, I undertook my counsellor training at CPPD Counselling School, in London. This training was ‘humanistic’, meaning that I do not focus on diagnosing any particular condition, but instead work with you as a whole person and concentrate on our relationship as a means of therapeutic growth. While humanistic therapy is just right for some, for others it does not provide enough of a ‘toolkit’ to use in difficult times. For this reason, I supplemented my counsellor training with a degree in CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) with University of Derby. CBT takes a more practical approach to mental health issues by identifying thoughts and beliefs that may be working against you and developing techniques to recognise and reprogramme them. I have found that what most people respond to is a combination of humanistic and CBT therapies but this is something that we will figure out together as our relationship develops. To learn more about the styles of therapy I use in our work, please visit my services page.

I have worked as a therapist in the NHS and in the charity sector and still work as a volunteer counsellor at Mind one day a week.