About me
With more than 30 years in the NHS as a General Nurse, Mental Health Nurse, Genetic Counsellor and qualified Cognitive Behavioural therapist, I have a wealth of experience to help you with your problems. I particularly specialise in helping people and their loved ones come to terms with chronic or life limiting illness and also genetic conditions. My aim is to assist you to make decisions for yourself, to improve your sense of personal wellbeing and to alleviate your distress. I provide a friendly, respectful, confidential and safe space for us to explore what is bothering you and help you work towards finding an effective way through. Therapy is tailored to your individual needs aiming to help you make progress straight away.
My Approach:
My main counselling qualification is in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (level 7) which is proven to help in a wide range of emotional and physical health conditions and is recommended by National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a proven effective treatment for depression and anxiety. CBT looks at the connection between our emotions, thoughts, behaviour and physical reactions and by gaining awareness of these connections, we can learn invaluable skills that will help us manage difficulties both now and in the future. During your therapy sessions, we will explore what might be contributing to your distress and helping you identify more effective strategies to manage your situation.
Initial session:
You will be asked to tell me as much about your reasons for seeking assistance as you can so that we can gain a better understanding of how I may be able to help and ways in which we may work together. We will be working at your own pace and if you feel uncertain about explaining certain things, your decisions will be respected. During this first session, my job is to listen and by doing this I hope that you will feel supported and understood. We will also begin to explore ways of how you can better manage your situation so that you leave the session with some tools to move forward.
Subsequent Sessions:
I would usually suggest six further sessions with the opportunity to review progress in every session. There would then be the option of continuing beyond six sessions should we both feel that this would be appropriate. Some people require six sessions or less, others may need many more than the initial six sessions.
I offer counselling in a quiet and private location with free parking. There is also a bus route nearby connecting to Cardiff, Bridgend and the Rhondda valleys.
Training, qualifications & experience
Qualifications:
Post graduate Certificate in Counselling (2000)
Post graduate Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (2012)
Post graduate Diploma in Consultative Supervision (2017)
Registered General Nurse
Registered Mental Health Nurse
Genetic Counsellor
Continued professional development:
CBT for Physical illness
CBT for Health Anxiety
CBT for Building Resilience
Schema Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for chronic and life limiting illness.
Experience:
My specialist experience and main area of experience in counselling is with adjustment to illness/disability, and also to genetic risk. I am qualified to offer an 8 session programme of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for coping with chronic or life limiting illness to enable people in this situation to adjust and achieve what is important to them.
I am also experienced in counselling for anxiety and depression and as a registered Mental Health Nurse have experience of working with people with the various mental health problems. I have worked with mother's with post natal depression and also people with alcohol addiction.
Member organisations

British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy
BACP is one of the UK’s largest professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy. Therapists registered with the Association fall into a number of different membership categories such as Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP and Registered Member MBACP (Accred), each standing for different levels of training and experience. MBACP (Accred) and MBACP (Snr Accred) members have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by the Association.
Registered members can be found on the BACP Register, which was the first register to achieve Accredited Voluntary Register status issued by the Professional Standards Authority. Individual Members will have completed an appropriate counselling and/or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but will not appear on the BACP Register until they've progressed to Registered Member MBACP status.
All members are bound by a Code of Ethics & Practice and a Complaints Procedure. Accredited by the Professional Standards Authority.
Accredited register membership

Accredited Register Scheme
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
Therapies offered
Fees
My fees are £40 for an hour session
Further information
Supervision:
I am also a qualified supervisor and provide supervision for health care professionals within the NHS and privately.
Professional Membership:
NMC
BACP