About me
At the age of 15 I spent my work experience in the Art Therapy department of a psychiatric hospital in Kent. This ignited my desire to work in the helping professions. Life went in different directions including hospitality management, a spell as cabin crew with Virgin Atlantic, a degree in Business and Management and into motherhood. During this time I worked for the Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB), becoming a liaison between the CAB and a young persons’ charity in Dorchester ‘Routes’. I have worked for many years in schools doing forest school and gardening with the children, building on my awareness of the therapeutic benefits of working with people outdoors. I am so pleased now to have come full circle and be working with clients creatively and outdoors to facilitate healing and growth.
My studies over the last ten years have led to a deep interest in ‘Ecotherapy’ stemming from my own experience of the healing power of walking. My professional experience as a qualified integrative therapist, used in conjunction with the beautiful and dramatic Dorset countryside provide an environment for holistic healing, discovery and well-being.
in addition to my private practice, I have also worked for The Counselling Information Trust in Poole and with children and adolescents at STARS Dorset.
Rogerian, person-centred philosophy underpins all parts of how I work and I particularly love this quote.
“As life vividly reveals itself in the therapeutic process – with its blind power and its tremendous capacity for destruction, but with its overbalancing thrust toward growth, if the opportunity for growth is provided”
My studies over the last 10 years…
Qualifications
• Advanced Diploma in Integrative Counselling (BACP Accredited)
This qualification incorporated integration of the following theories, modalities and aspects of contemporary counselling;
The Theory of Attachment, Person Centred Philosophy, Ego states, Seven Level Model, Diversity and Multiculturalism, Transference and Countertransference, Heron’s Six Categories of Intervention, Theories of Personality, Transactional Analysis, Gestalt, Humanism and Existentialism
Transpersonal Myths and Archetypes, CBT, Mindfulness, Systems Theory, Trauma, Neurobiology, Medication.
• Certificate in Counselling
• BA (Hons) International Business and Management
• Post Qualifying Diploma in Counselling Young People
• Certificate in working with couples and relationships
CPD Workshops
• Introduction to Ecotherapy: Counselling with nature in mind
• Connecting Through Creativity: Facilitating relationship, healing and wellbeing in the therapeutic and helping professions.
• Adverse Childhood Experiences: Igniting Resilience and Hope. Applying Trauma Informed Approach to ACE.
• Trauma, Abandonment, Privilege: An introduction to working with ‘Boarding School Survivors’
• Promoting Mental Health and Emotional Well-being in Young People: We are hearing but are we really listening?
• Psychodrama Psychotherapy – Key concepts
• Stepping into the World of Faery Tales: an exploration of archetypes and symbols to aid the understanding of a client’s inner world
• Disordered Eating: Working with the body/mind of patient and therapist
• Close encounters with addiction; Gabor Matte
• Working with common sexual difficulties in women; COSRTlearn
• Understanding and working with Preoccupied Attachment; Linda Cundy
• Understanding and working with Avoidant Attachment, Self-hatred and Shame; Linda Cundy