About Me
My interest in counselling and psychotherapy began during my mental health nurse training.
My interest in counselling and psychotherapy began during my mental health nurse training. I remember one night shift being asked if I wanted to observe the night sister demonstrate a counselling approach with someone who was extremely anxious. I had never witnessed anything like it before –the ‘patient’ found her answers and I was hooked on what was then called alternative practice. I wanted to be able to help people like that! Soon after qualifying as a mental health nurse I joined a course called ‘Developments in Psychiatry’ which introduced me to talking therapies and from there I met Transactional Analysis and I have never looked back.
Now I focus purely on my counselling and psychotherapy practice.
I have a special personal and professional interest in Huntington’s Disease and the psychological welfare of people affected by this genetic disease.
My career
- I have used the theories of TA in my career and personal life ever since. In the NHS I worked in ‘acute psychiatry’ and Older Peoples Services’, in both hospital and community settings as a clinician and a manager. In the 2000’s as the ideology of care in the community developed I left the NHS and became director of a community care service, with the aim of supporting people to live independently in their own home. This gave me the opportunity to focus on what had become my true passion of talking therapies, using this as a core component of the service philosophy and delivery of care. In the past few years, due to family circumstances and changes in how services were commissioned and delivered I made the decision to close the service. Thankfully one of the clients defined its legacy telling me ‘your service saved and changed lives, people are alive today because of what you did and remember not all good things in life are measured by money! Thank you team that one is for all of us !