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 I currently have availability during the week between the hours of 9 and 5.

I am a certified trauma professional with 18 years experience providing counselling/psychotherapy.  I have dedicated my career to working with people who have experienced trauma and who have found traditional therapies unhelpful.  I use trauma specific strategies to help people to manage trauma symptoms including anxiety, depression, anger, guilt, shame, low self-esteem, flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, emotional dysregulation, relationship difficulties, self-harming, addiction and any overwhelming emotional responses.  My particular speciality is working with people who experience dissociation as a trauma response.

I am a certified clinical EFT (tapping) practitioner and a sandplay therapist.  I have been lucky enough to work with hundreds of clients over the years and who have been brave enough to put their trust in me and the process of recovery. 

Being a trauma specialist means that I have had specific training in working with people who have experienced different forms of trauma.  These include single incident traumas such as natural disasters, accidents, one off violent attacks or complex trauma including childhood abuse, domestic violence and attachment issues (growing up with narcissistic/addictive or abusive parents).

I am able to use a variety of modalities to meet the needs of each individual client.  These include ACT, somatic therapy, expressive therapies, EFT (tapping), narrative therapy, positive psychology, sensorimotor psychotherapy, structural dissociation model, mindfulness based stress reduction, person-centered, pschodynamic therapy, somatic therapy.

Many symptoms such as anxiety and depression are normal responses to trauma and I can help you to understand how the body and brain adapts to traumatic situations by forming patterns of behaviour through neural connections.  Although these patterns are normal I will teach to how to achieve new healthy patterns through targeted interventions that are easy and effective. 

I am currently offering face to face, online and telephone counselling.  I provide hourly sessions or longer if needed for sessions of Clinical EFT.  EFT is particularly, effective for phobias and anxiety, intrusive memories and nightmares.

All of the strategies that I use, including EFT can be implemented and practiced at home on a daily basis.  I like to use strategies that clients can practice and master themselves, thus eliminating the need for counselling/psychotherapy.  

The strategies I teach are easy and require repetition.  The repetition is what helps to form new neural connections that eventually override the old unhelpful patterns.  I provide handouts that I can e-mail to clients to help remember the strategies that we learn during the sessions.

I think of each strategy as an experiment that we can try out.  I find that different strategies work for different people.  If one strategy doesn't work, don't worry, there are a hundred more to try.  You will find the ones that work for you.

Self-compassion is an essential ingredient for any therapy and I understand that this may be a huge barrier for some people.  Self-compassion is like any other strategy; it takes practice.  

The counselling process is a collaborative one.  I am not the kind of counsellor that is directive.  The nature of trauma is the loss of power and control and I believe that clients need to feel in control of their recovery.  There is an element of psychoeducation with trauma therapy as it's helpful for clients to understand why they feel they way they do. 

You will always be informed why an intervention is being suggested and how it helps to manage your symptoms.  There may be interventions that you don't like or want to experiment with and that is absolutely fine as there will be numerous other interventions that you can try.

Please feel free to pick up the phone and ask me about anything that you have read here.  It will be a good chance for you to get to know if I am the right counsellor for you. 

The first session will be an opportunity for you to let me know what you want from counselling and for me to find out a bit about you.  

Everybody is different.  Some people like to tell me about their history in the first session, other people prefer to hear some information about trauma, anxiety, depression etc. so they can get an understanding about why they feel the way they do.  This sometimes takes the pressure off people if they feel a bit anxious about talking about themselves at first.

There are no hard and fast rules, we use the first session in what ever way is comfortable for each individual.  

There may be some safety issues we need to discuss, particularly as there may be some risks to online counselling if there is any domestic violence in the home.  We will also discuss privacy and confidentiality and you will be welcome to ask any questions around these issues.

I provide face to face,  online and telephone supervision and my hours are flexible to meet your needs.  

I provide face to face, online and telephone supervision for between 1 and 1.5 hours.    I am a fully qualified supervisor with 19 years experience of counselling and counselling supervision

I am trained in the 7 eyed model (Hawkins and Shohet) and the Cyclical model (Page and Wosket).

Through supervision, I aim to help each counsellor find their own strengths and unique way of working.  Each counselor is different depending on their experience and levels of confidence and supervision is tailored to meet the needs of each individual.  

I like to introduce new strategies to help counsellors enhance their practice and to build on the practical skills that they already have.  

I also like to work with self-awareness and the use of somatic strategies, so counsellor can get used to identifying their own responses throughout the counselling and supervisory process.

For face-to-face supervision, counsellors also have the use of sandplay to further deepen their experience.  This is a fun way to explore counselling as it can uncover unconscious processes.

My experience over the past 19 years has been supporting counsellors in a supervisory and team leader capacity.  This has been in addiction services, sexual assault services and domestic violence services.  I currently have my own private practice, offering counselling and supervision.

My specialities are in trauma counselling, EFT (tapping), sandplay therapy and somatic therapies.   

It is important for you to feel safe and supported and to find the right supervisor to fit with you.  Please feel free to request a phone call and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have and to also provide an opportunity for you to assess whether we will be a good fit.

The first session will be a good opportunity to discuss expectations, confidentiality, privacy and contracting.  We may also have time for a client presentation.