A bit about me - my professional experience and formal qualifications

If you’ve decided that you would like to try some sort of therapy you’ll need to know a bit about me as part of your decision on who you are going to see. When considering which therapist to choose you might bear in mind that no one can take you further in your therapy then they have travelled themselves, so it depends in part on how far you want to go.

I have been a counsellor and psychotherapist, working with couples and individuals, for nearly 30 years. Like everyone, I have experienced life’s ups and downs and, whilst I have spent many years working and studying in this field, much of my empathy and thinking is sharpened by reflections on personal experiences. And like all good therapists, I too have had many years of my own psychotherapy to help me to understand ‘me’ better and thereby know where ‘I’ end and ‘you’ begin.

I began my career in the 1980s, first in a city drop-in crisis centre then in an organisation helping parents through difficulties with their small children. I trained and qualified as a couple counsellor with Relate in South London in the 1990s and I have worked as a counsellor within Relate ever since. I extended my training and study into Individual Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in a five-year course at Canterbury University. After my training I worked in an NHS Psychotherapy Department for five years, seeing individuals with a variety of emotional and psychological difficulties.

I have in recent years studied at the Tavistock Clinic for Couple Relationships (TCCR) in London, which is internationally renowned as a centre of excellence and pioneering research for couple therapy. It was here that I completed my MA in ‘Attachment, Psychoanalysis and the Couple Relationship’ with my thesis researching into the effect of the sibling relationship on that of the couple. I have had a small private practice since 2000 and I am an accredited member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).

Link to the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships
Link to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
Link to Relate

Qualifications

1990-2002	Certificate in Marital and Couple Counselling: Theory and Practice	Relate
1994-1995	Certificate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Studies	University of Kent Canterbury
1996-2001	Post Graduate Diploma in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Studies	University of Kent Canterbury
1999	Infant Observation course	University of Kent Canterbury
2002-2004	Post Graduate Diploma in Couple Therapy, Psychodynamic and Systemic Theories	Relate and University of East London
2005-2007	Institute of Group Analysis: Introduction Years	London and South West
2007	Post Graduate Diploma in Psychoanalytic Study of the Couple Relationship	TCCR London
2010	Post Graduate Diploma in Attachment, Psychoanalysis and the Couple Relationship	TCCR London.
2011	MA in Attachment, Psychoanalysis and the Couple Relationship	TCCR London