My Training

I am more than my CV and believe my life experience and experience of my own therapy are more important than my academic training.  However, you will want to know I am qualified and experienced.

In addition to my degrees from The University of Durham and the University of Manchester, and my teacher training qualification from Derby College, I am a graduate of the Minster Centre, London, which is a private counselling / psychotherapy training institution, where I was trained in the following approaches: psychodynamic, the body-in-psychotherapy, and relational psychotherapy.  This training has helped me develop my listening skills; understand therapeutic boundaries; and develop my awareness of the importance of the unconscious and the influence of how past experiences continue to influence us in the present.  This background also helped me grasp the importance of Attachment Theory: how childhood blueprints of bonding with our parents / care-givers play out later in life.  It also deepened my ability to work relationally with my client – not only in the transference (how I as your therapist remind you of your mother or other caregiver), but also how my unique personality connects with your unique personality, and the unique relationship that we operate from and within, in an involving and evolving way.   

Further training in Energy Psychotherapy

I am committed to the emerging approaches to dealing with unresolved internal conflict and trauma.  To this end I have completed a generic training course in energy psychotherapy called Converging Streams (2013 – 2014).  Prior and subsequently to this course, I have also done specialist training in particular energy psychotherapy techniques: Psychoanalytic Energy Psychotherapy (PEP), Dynamic Energetic Healing (DEH), Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT), and Advanced Integrative Therapy (AIT).  Plus, I have also trained in disciplines that are not known by their 3-letter acronyms including: Acupoint Tapping, Blue Diamond, Ask and Receive, and Healing from the Body Level Up (HBLU).        

I am an AIT practitioner which means I have done the requisite training and associated paperwork to be registered internationally with the Advanced Integrative Therapy Institute in the USA, and with AIT Europe.  In addition to the mandatory seminars to become a practitioner: Basics training, and Mastering AIT Practice (MAP), I have completed the following further training: Depths (2014), Character Structure (2015), Presence & Dissociation (2015), Dreamworks: The Study of Dreams (2016), Treating Historical Trauma (2016), Attachment: Theory & Treatment (2017), Multi-causal Illness (2017), Cancer Prevention & Treatment (2018), Treating the Wounded Spirit (2018), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (2019).  For more information see here.

Other training

I am both one of the most experienced energy therapists and one of the most experienced AIT practitioners in the country.  However, I am also interested and engaged with other counselling and psychotherapy training outside of the Energy Psychotherapy umbrella.  I am a Non-Violent Resistance (NVR) practitioner, which offers suggestions for ways of being with others including partners and children.  This means I recommend simple (but not easy!) techniques to de-escalate conflict.  For example, the notion “strike whilst the iron is COLD” i.e. wait until both / all parties have calmed down after an argument before non defensively working on a resolution, is the kind of useful strategy that we all do well to implement – myself included. 

I continue to be challenged by engaging in Continuous Professional Development (CPD).  Recently I have completed CPD training with Nscience entitled “Trauma and the Body” (2019).  This reminded me of the importance of stabilising the nervous system / body before working on trauma.  Also of great benefit is breathing that engages the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, useful to calm us down and stabilise us.  From a calmer place our bodies can work with our minds for change and healing.