About Me

Qualifications and Experience
    * I have a doctorate, MA and PGDip in psychology, counselling and psychotherapy.
    * I am a BPS Chartered Psychologist, a Fellow of the BPS, an HCPC Registered Counselling Psychologist and a Registered BACP Senior Accredited Counsellor and Psychotherapist.
    * I have enjoyed running my own private counselling and psychotherapy practice since 1996, supporting clients (individuals and couples).

What kind of counselling and psychotherapy do I offer?
People often ask me if I specialise in a particular area, for example, relationship problems.  My response is that I am a general counsellor/psychotherapist so am trained to support people with all kinds of problems.  Therefore, people come to see me for all sorts of reasons, for example, to do with relationships or work; general life stresses; emotional problems arising from coping with illness, bereavement, family problems, as well as many other issues.  I also work with a diverse range of clients and supervisees, of differing genders, ages, sexual orientations and socio-economic backgrounds, with differing racial, cultural and religious backgrounds.

•  I support people on the phone or on Skype, or a combination of these.
•  I see people weekly or fortnightly.
•  A session can last 30, 40 or 50 minutes and my fees are adjusted accordingly (see information page for details).
•  I also offer one-off, telephone or Skype assessments to help people decide whether counselling/psychotherapy would be helpful to them and, if so, how to proceed.

How I work
I am an integrative counsellor/psychotherapist, so I use a number of approaches and techniques in my work with clients, because I believe that no one approach is likely to be adequate on its own.  However, I have particular interests in client-centred and psychodynamic approaches, as well as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).  Click here for more information.

Mostly, however, I believe that it is the relationship that my client and I build together that will determine whether therapy is successful for my client or not.  Indeed, there is research evidence to back this up.  Therefore, I always encourage people to come and meet me once and see how comfortable they feel, before they commit to a course of therapy with me.  Once they have done so, I then suggest committing to four or five sessions, either weekly or two weekly, with a review at the end of this period, so my client can decide if they are finding therapy useful and whether they want to continue or not.

Other counselling and psychotherapy related work
I have been involved in explicit and non-explicit psychology, counselling and psychotherapy related work for the last thirty-seven years, in a variety of settings, for example, in schools (as a teacher and advisory teacher, with pastoral and line management responsibility), in a University counselling service, and in healthcare settings.

Other counselling and psychotherapy related interests and experience
I have also conducted a large amount of research, some in the field of education, but mostly counselling/psychotherapy related (MA and doctoral research), focusing on the quality of the service we offer as practitioners. My results, and related issues, have been published widely in counselling and psychotherapy publications.  (See my publications page.)

I can work in French, as well as English.