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I am a ÌÇÐĹÙÍø accredited counsellor based in the Fiveways area of Brighton and Hove.

Do any of these sound familiar? I have years of experience helping clients deal with similar themes.

• you feel, at some fundamental level, you are not good enough or broken;

• there are different, seemingly contradictory, parts of you, and you would like to become more comfortable with them;

• You sometimes struggle to relate to others and would like to break out of patterns of unhealthy relationships;

• you sometimes self-sabotage and behave in ways that block you;

• you find yourself reacting to challenging life events in unhelpful ways and would like to deal with them differently;

• you are aware that difficult or painful experiences can keep you "stuck" in the past;

• you have a chronic health condition that you struggle to live with;

• you feel overwhelmed with life and feel like other people seem to cope better than you do;

• you struggle to live in the present and know how you are feeling, you sometimes feel like you are on auto-pilot.

What I offer is an honest relationship in which you can feel safe enough to talk about difficult or painful experiences, thoughts and feelings and know that I will not judge you.

We spend a lot of time performing, and this can mean we never get a chance to reflect on our experiences and understand how we feel about them. This can lead to depression, overwhelm, frustration and anxiety. This is particularly true when we have had to cope, or are trying to cope, with difficult circumstances like challenging family relationships, loss and grief, or ill health.

I can offer you a safe and honest space to understand what might be underneath how you are feeling, by holding up a mirror to you and getting curious about what we find, I can help you identify blind spots and connections you might not be aware of. When we understand our feelings better, we can feel more in control and less at their mercy. 

I work from a room in the Fiveways Hub on Ditchling Road in Brighton. I offer sessions either in-person or via video call. 

I have a PGDip in Humanistic Psychotherapeutic Counselling from the University of Brighton, and I am an accredited member of the ÌÇÐĹÙÍø.

I am also an experienced teacher. I am an Associate Lecturer in counselling and mental health at the Open University, and I teach an introductory course on counselling skills at the University of Brighton.

Before training to be a counsellor, and I worked as a social science lecturer and researcher at the University of Sussex for 12 years.

I combine my background in the social sciences with my training as a counsellor. How we feel about ourselves is not just influenced by our personal experiences, family and relationships, but also by the communities and society in which we live.

What is Humanistic Counselling?

Humanistic counselling is based on the idea that we all make our own meaning in life, so your experiences, and the meanings you have given them, will be unique to you - there isn’t an off-the-shelf diagnosis that can solve all your problems. The key is helping you become more self-aware so that you can respond to the world, rather than react to it.

It is also based on the idea that as it is often relationships that hurt us, it is also relationships that can heal us too. Counselling can offer a healing relationship with an honest, empathetic and accepting human - me! And, importantly, that means I am not going to tell you what I think you want to hear, but what I think you might need to hear (but always with kindness). 

I offer an initial 50 minute consultation for free. This session is a chance for us to get to know one another, for you to experience the way I work, ask any questions you might have, and decide if I am the right counsellor for you. 

Supervision is reflection-in-action, and it is where I feel most at home. Before I trained to be a counsellor, and then a supervisor, I taught reflective practice in the social sciences for over a decade. Standing back and finding a different perspective on ourselves, others and the world at large is what I do naturally most of the time, and I bring that reflective way of being to my supervision practice.

I use the seven-eyed model of supervision. This model focuses on seven perspectives – with an eye on the client; the interventions; the client-therapist relationship; the therapist; the therapist-supervisor relationship; the supervisor; and the wider context. What I love about this model, is how is views the client-therapist-supervisor triad as a relationship, which we can understand from many perspectives, and the parallel processes that exist between us all can ultimately help the clients we work with. 

I have a Certificate in Creative Supervisio. I am ÌÇÐĹÙÍø Accredited, and have a decade of experience in counselling. I have a PGDip in Humanistic Psychotherapeutic Counselling from the University of Brighton, and I draw on theory from Person-Centred, Gestalt, Existential and Transactional Analysis therapies. I am process-focused, and work relationally with clients and supervisees. My supervision training had a strong focus on creativity, and I use creative methods with clients and supervisees to support their reflection.

As well as being a counsellor and supervisor, I teach on the ‘Introduction to the therapeutic relationship and counselling skills’ module at the University of Brighton, and I am an Associate Lecture in counselling and mental health at the Open University. 

Please get in touch with me if you would like to have an introductory session with me. I offer this for £35, which is half the cost of a normal 50-minute session.

Fees are: £65 for a 50-minute session (twice a month) or £100 for a 120-minute session (once a month)

We can meet online, via Zoom, or in-person in my room near Fiveways in Brighton.