About me
I am fortunate enough to be able to say that my passion for helping people to improve and maintain their mental wellbeing has also became my long term career. People have an amazing ability to change and heal and I feel privileged to be in a position towards helping to achieve this.
I have lived experience of mental health difficulties myself throughout my teenage years, which is what eventually inspired me and led to my passion for helping others. My extensive professional knowledge and insights gained from CBT and other psychological therapies has been invaluable to me both personally and professionally.
I have a special interest in working with self worth/acceptance and using compassion focussed approaches within my practice. The way I practice is driven by a belief that we have the ability to influence our own mind and the insights that are to be gained can help to improve and prevent significant mental health/psychological problems.
Background/experience
I have worked within NHS Primary Care Mental Health Services for over 17 years. During this time I have predominantly worked delivering one to one therapy sessions to adults in community based settings, such as GP practices. I also have some experience developing and delivering groups, for example, post natal depression, depression and anxiety.
My main experience and training is within CBT. I also have training in other therapies, such as EMDR and REBT. My values and style of therapy is fitting with ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), which is classed as a ‘third wave’ CBT and currently gaining an increasing evidence base at being an effective therapy for many pychological difficulties.
I also have training in other therapies, including level 1, 2 & 3 trianed in EMDR (eye movement desensitisation & reprocessing) and the use of ‘Flash Technique’ and REBT (rational emotive behavioral therapy).
I have previously worked to influence service development in order to expand primary care mental health services within the locality I worked and am very keen to contribute to this further in order to improve the access and quality of services for people.
Qualifications
- BSc Psychology with Counselling Skills
- Post Graduate Cert. Primary Mental Health Care
- Post Graduate Dip. Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy (CBT)
- Primary and Advanced Cert. Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT)
- Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) Parts 1-3