About me
Couples Counselling on Hayling Island, Hampshire
I work exclusively with couples who want a clearer, steadier way of being together.
Many couples arrive feeling stuck in repeated patterns of hurt, misunderstanding, or distance. Often both partners are trying their best, yet something keeps going wrong. My role is not to take sides or offer quick fixes, but to help you slow patterns down, understand what is happening between you, and build more workable ways of relating.
My work is structured and purposeful. I use a framework I have developed called A Recipe for a Good Life, an integrative approach drawing on attachment theory, emotional regulation, and relational practice. The focus is on building emotional safety, strengthening regulation, and developing the capacity to stay engaged with one another even when conversations become difficult.
I work through counselling intensives. Each intensive consists of two 80-minute sessions with a short break in between and time at the end for consolidation. This format allows us to go deeper than traditional weekly sessions, while still maintaining clear containment and structure.
Within the intensives, couples learn to recognise and interrupt unhelpful relational patterns, understand the emotional systems driving conflict, communicate more directly and responsibly, repair more effectively after rupture, and reconnect emotionally and physically in ways that feel realistic and mutual.
Together, the intensives form a developmental journey. Couples move from building safety and clarity, to learning regulation, to turning towards difficulty with greater steadiness, and finally to integrating their history and direction. The aim is not perfection, but a relationship that feels alive, respectful, and grounded.
Counselling with me is not about blame or diagnosis. It is about clarity, responsibility, and strengthening your shared capacity to face life together.
Training, qualifications & experience
Wpf Diploma in Psychodynamic Counselling :2005.
Re:Vision Certificate working with Couples: 2011.
Wpf Certificate working with Eating Disorders:2007.
Diploma in Hypnotherapy:2010.
BA(Hons) in Fine Art with History of Art:1987.
I am a BACP Accredited Counsellor and Psychotherapist. You can find out more about BACP at www.bacp.co.uk
I have been working with clients since 2003, both within an agency and private setting.
Member organisations
school Registered / Accredited
Being registered/accredited with a professional body means an individual must have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by their member organisation.
BACP is one of the UK’s leading professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy with around 60,000 members. The Association has several different categories of membership, including Student Member, Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP, Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Accred) and Senior Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Snr Acccred). Registered and accredited members are listed on the BACP Register, which shows that they have demonstrated BACP’s recommended standards for training, proficiency and ethical practice. The BACP Register was the first register of psychological therapists to be accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). Accredited and senior accredited membership are voluntary categories for members who choose to undertake a rigorous application and assessment process to demonstrate additional standards around practice, training and supervision. Individual members will have completed an appropriate counselling or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but they won’t appear on the BACP Register until they've demonstrated that they meet the standards for registration. Student members are still in the process of completing their training. All members are bound by the BACP Ethical Framework and a Professional Conduct Procedure.
Accredited register membership
The Accredited Register Scheme was set up in 2013 by the Department of Health (DoH) as a way to recognise organisations that hold voluntary registers which meet certain standards. These standards are set by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).
This therapist has indicated that they belong to an Accredited Register.
Areas of counselling I deal with
Other areas of counselling I deal with
Within couples counselling I may draw on mindfulness and relational approaches to support emotional awareness, regulation, and reflection. These are used to help partners understand their own responses and remain engaged with one another.
Photos & videos
Fees
£256.00 per session
Additional information
Summary of How the Service Works:
I work exclusively with Couples through structured Intensives.
You contact me by email and we will arrange a brief phone conversation with each of you. This gives you an opportunity to get a sense of what it might feel like to work with me, and whether I am the right counsellor for you.
Where appropriate we will begin with an individual Gathering Intensive. This gives us time to understand what is happening between you, what each of you wants help with, and whether the Recipe for a Good Life programme feels like the right next step. If we agree to continue, I then ask couples to book an initial block of four further Recipe for a Good Life intensives.
A Recipe for a Good Life is a structured couples programme I have developed over many years of working with relationships. It is structured in the form of counselling intensives, which includes morning or afternoon session blocks.
Morning Intensives are from 9.30am-12.20pm with a 10 minute break for which I charge £256.
Afternoon Intensives are from 13.30pm-16.20pm with a 10 minute break for which I charge £256.
The Gathering Intensive offers an introduction to the work. Further intensives are booked as either a morning or afternoon intensive on a weekly or fortnightly basis.
Further information
I work from a private garden room at my home on Hayling Island.
I work with couples through structured counselling intensives. These are focused morning and afternoon session blocks designed to create depth, momentum, and real movement in a short period of time.
After the Gathering Intensive, the four intensives form a developmental journey. Couples move from building emotional safety, to learning regulation, to turning towards difficulty, and finally to integrating their history and direction. The work honours difference, reduces shame, and supports couples in building a relationship that is both emotionally and physically alive, realistic, and rooted in mutual understanding.
Intensives allow us to slow patterns down and understand what is happening beneath conflict, withdrawal, or distance. Rather than quick fixes or blame, the focus is on clarity, responsibility, and strengthening your capacity to stay engaged with one another, even when things are hard.
Couples who work best with me are willing to reflect, take responsibility for their part in the relationship, and practise new ways of relating between sessions.
If you are considering working together, you can contact me by email to arrange a brief phone conversation. This gives us space to assess whether this approach feels right for you and whether I am the right fit.
