This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
I work with adults offering counselling for all manner of issues that may be causing distress, confusion, grief or a feeling of being stuck. The counselling relationship is one where we can start to feel safe enough with another person, and begin together to be able to notice and explore our situation and feelings from different perspectives. This can be a relief, and transformative in so many ways.
My professional life has included working as a Shiatsu practitioner, an NHS Midwife and Health visitor, and 30 + years of study and practice in meditation and yoga. I incorporate this experience with my counselling training (Advanced Diploma in Humanistic Integrative Counselling) and work in a way that is relational, trauma informed, safe, kind, and present.
I have had particular experience working with mothers and fathers in the transition to parenthood. This is a very tender time, and can often trigger our own childhood adversity and traumas. Getting support at this time can be so important when we want to make sure we don't repeat painful patterns that we may have experienced in our own childhood
Training, qualifications & experience
Advanced Diploma in Integrative Humanistic Counselling, Dartmoor Centre, Newton Abbott, Devon
Year Graduated: 2022
Year I Began Practice: 2020
BSc Specialist Community Public Health Nursing (Health Visitor), UWE, 2012
DipHE Midwifery, Plymouth University, 2004
Diploma and Advanced Diploma Zen Shiatsu, The Sydney Shiatsu School, 1989
Member organisations
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
I work in a Trauma Informed way which means that in the work we do together I will always include an awareness of the trauma you may have experienced, and share with me. I will support you to go at your own pace and our work will be collaborative.
I will aim to build experiences of safety in the relationship between us, and these feelings of safety is what makes counselling therapeutic and ultimately healing. As Stephen Porges says (2018) '... trauma disrupts the capacity to feel safe ... and safety is the treatment.'
So many of us have not felt safe in relationships. When this has happened in our earliest relationships, when we are babies and children and growing and internalising our sense of who we feel and believe we are, it can leave us with the experience of feeling somehow bad, ashamed or afraid in the present. It can suck away our resilience and self esteem.
This can ripple out into our lives in the present, in the here and now, leaving us feeling lacking in confidence, confused, lonely or unlovable.
All trauma happens in relationship.
As we go feeling safer together, you may start having an 'experience' of safety in our relationship. Safety is like the warmth of the sun which can start to unthaw parts of us that have been stuck and frozen, and we can start to see ourselves in new and kinder ways, and see how clever our younger selves were to adapt and survive. With this forgiveness and self compassion comes new tendrils of hope ... and these ripple out into our lives in the present, here and now.
Psychoeducation is also an important part of a Trauma informed way of working as it increases our knowledge and understanding of ourselves, and of the nature of trauma. Knowledge can bring a sense of agency and empowerment. This way of working always incorporates the principles of compassion, humility and inclusivity. These are all essential qualities of safe relationships.
Learning how as humans our nervous systems have always been working away unconsciously to meet the unpredictability of our lives, and keep us safe from danger, can often relieve so much of the shame we may have internalised about the different strategies we may have used as ways to have coped to survive, and that may have become a problem themselves in the present.
This is tender and deep work, and needs genuine collaboration and presence. To feel deeply seen and heard and not judged is an 'experience' that grows a sense of trust and empowerment, and ultimately self compassion.
Some of the therapists and teachers that inspire me are Stephen Porges, Deb Dana, Janina Fisher, Bonnie Badenoch, Bessel Van de Kolk, Peter Levine, Carl Rogers, Richard Schwartz, Pat Ogden, Pema Chodron, Tara Brach, Pete Walker, Tim Fletcher, Ram Dass, Alan Watts, Eckhart Tolle, and TS Elliot. There are many more and i will add to this list in time ...
Therapies offered
Fees
£50.00 per session
Free initial telephone or online session
When I work
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I have some flexibility in my working hours so we can discuss this.
