For those looking for the non-academic ‘About Me’:
Lover of nature, garden birds, stubborn shoots growing through concrete, resistors, complaint-makers, herons, killjoys of the feminist varieties, neuroqueerdos, the right spoon, cats, old familiar songs on repeat, hope-in-action, asking the ‘silly’ questions, Andrea Gibson, disruptive words, saying the thing, people, seeking wonder.
Qualifications/Trainings
- Postgraduate Diploma in Psychodynamic Practice (Oxford University)
- Postgraduate Certificate in Psychodynamic Counselling (Oxford University)
- MA Psychoanalytic Studies (Birkbeck College)
- Graduate Certificate in Psychosocial Studies (Birkbeck College)
- National Autism Trainer (NATP via Anna Freud, Autistic-designed and led training throughout NHS England).
- One Year Introductory Lecture Series (Institute of Psychoanalysis)
- Political Mind Seminar Series (Institute of Psychoanalysis)
- Gendered Intelligence training: Working Alongside Trans, Gender Diverse and Questioning People
Other Important Details
- Enhanced DBS (on the update service)
- Insured by Balens Ltd.
- In regular supervision
- Individual Member of BACP (membership no. 01011388)
- Registered with the ICO
- Working in alignment with BACP Ethical Framework
Click here to see my fee and contact information.
Pre Therapy Training Experiences
- For five years I worked alongside Susie Orbach for a feminist activist organisation called AnyBody where we ran ‘Occupy your Body’ workshops, such as at the Women of the World festival at the Southbank; campaigned against toxic beauty ideals, and the imperative to make a project of one’s body; put on events like a premiere screening of the US documentary Fattitude, with an awesome panel of UK Fat Activists including Stephanie Yeboah and Sofie Hagen
- While living in London, I had the pleasure, also, of running in-person bespoke creative writing groups for individuals experiencing psychosis at The Psychosis Therapy Project, as well as co-running creative writing groups in person and online during lockdowns for the awesome Core Arts charity supporting those with mental health issues in artistic and creative ways.
- With a Movement Director colleague, Roanna Mitchell, I have worked creatively with ideas of madness and escapology, and co-facilitated groups for a subversive and creative collective of individuals left carrying “BPD” diagnoses, a label which too often harms.
- Make Space, a wonderful user-led collective that cares and supports individuals with experience of self-harm, welcomed me previously as host for an LGBTQIA+ specific creative writing space for those in the community with this experience. We had the joy of creating fleshed-out queer superhero characters, as well as participants writing powerful responses that allowed their bodies to speak from a particular position to the whole of them.
- For 18 months I worked on the mental health crisis line for Birmingham Mind in partnership with the NHS where I had the privilege of speaking with callers in distress, listening, building in-the-moment connections to help soothe and contain people who were very much on the brink, referring into services, or to face to face crisis appointments where needed, as well as creative safety-planning for those who were sick of being told to have a bath and a cup of tea.
- I sometimes teach on an MSc in Psychotherapy and supervise Master’s research students.
- Member of TACTT and the Feminist Therapy Network
- When I have availability, I offer consultation to clients who have been harmed in therapy, or who wonder if what they have experienced/are experiencing is harmful. I have lived experience of iatrogenic harm and work in collaboration with survivor-therapists who work in this area. You can find more information here.
