Who I am
I’m a psychodynamic counsellor and psychotherapist. I have worked as a mental health nurse with people experiencing mental health and addiction problems for over 20 years in NHS hospitals, prisons, supported accommodation and nursing homes. I’ve also worked in health research.
I have worked with people experiencing relationship difficulties, personality disorder, depression and anxiety, grief & bereavement, childhood trauma and neglect, problem drinking, drug use and many other emotional or relational issues. I am a sex positive, LGBTQIA+ friendly counsellor and have a diverse range of clients.
Part of my caseload is reserved for people who cannot afford private therapy, they pay me an affordable donation for each session.
Qualifications & CPD
1996 – Diploma in Nursing (mental health), Stirling University, Highland & Islands Campus, Inverness.
2009 – CBA in management of addiction services, Glasgow University.
2011 – Masters of Research (health), Stirling University.
2019 – Post Graduate Diploma in Psychodynamic Counselling and Human Relations, Human Development Scotland, Glasgow
Oct 2020 – Internal Family Systems intro workshop CPD
Jan 2021 – Internal Family Systems for complex trauma: 12 hour training CPD
Aug/Sep 2021 – Psychedelic Coalition for Health – Psychedelic Medicine Symposium: 12 hour CPD
28 Sep 2021 – Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families – transformation seminar – Guilaine Kinouani – Whiteness as pathology: shifting the location of disturbance to dismantle social inequality: CPD
What I offer
1-1 therapy
We will meet, usually weekly, in the consulting room. This is an opportunity to be curious about yourself and past or present relationships and experience. To make sense of, or to reach a deeper understanding of, self and others. As our relationship to the self changes, our relationship to others also change.
Guided meditation & object relations
This is a way of working on past trauma, adverse childhood experience, complex grief or other deeply held wounds. This way of working can help transform destructive, defensive or addictive behaviours. Working on parts of ourselves we’d like to transform or heal.
Somatic work
I practice and taught tai chi for many years and have come back to it, last year, after a break. I can offer this movement as a way of working on the body as well as the mind. Emotion begins in the body and can sometimes be stored in the body when experiences and wounds are unresolved or unprocessed, especially if they are pre-verbal experiences.
All of the above ways of working can be blended in therapy according to need.
