Who Am I?
I believe there is a profound mystery and wonder to life that we often take for granted in the daily hustle and bustle of our own lives. In my practice as a counsellor and supervisor, I repeatedly observe how, when we slow down and ground ourselves with a gentle self-awareness, we can provide the skillful means to develop a better understanding of the causes of our suffering and a greater ability to choose how we respond to the circumstances we experience in life.
I have a Certificate in Humanistic and Psychodynamic Counselling (Goldsmiths, University of London), a BACP accredited Diploma in Counselling (The Gestalt Centre, London) and a Diploma in Contemplative Supervision (The Karuna Insitute, Dartmoor). I continue to undertake CPD and have completed a Core Process Psychotherapy Diploma in Relational Mindfulness (The Karuna Institute), a Diploma in Jungian Psychology (Jung Centre, Dublin), a Certificate in A Person-Centred Approach to Death and Dying (Living Well Dying Well), a Gestalt Awareness Practice open-seat intensive with Esalen elder, Christine Price (Tribal Ground), Somatic Experiencing workshops with leading trauma pioneer, Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing), Trauma Constellation workshops with gestalt and psychotrauma therapist, Vivian Broughton, Hakomi Practitioner Training (Hakomi London), and numerous retreats and teachings with the founder of Core Process Psychotherapy, Maura Sills, whose teaching I hold as my core practice both in my day-to-day life and my therapeutic practice. I have a longstanding embodied mindfulness practice which has evolved over 30 years study and appreciation of various traditional transpersonal teachings.
I have a Certificate in Humanistic and Psychodynamic Counselling (Goldsmiths, University of London), a BACP accredited Diploma in Counselling (The Gestalt Centre, London) and a Diploma in Contemplative Supervision (The Karuna Insitute, Dartmoor). I continue to undertake CPD and have completed a Core Process Psychotherapy Diploma in Relational Mindfulness (The Karuna Institute), a Diploma in Jungian Psychology (Jung Centre, Dublin), a Certificate in A Person-Centred Approach to Death and Dying (Living Well Dying Well), a Gestalt Awareness Practice open-seat intensive with Esalen elder, Christine Price (Tribal Ground), Somatic Experiencing workshops with leading trauma pioneer, Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing), Trauma Constellation workshops with gestalt and psychotrauma therapist, Vivian Broughton, Hakomi Practitioner Training (Hakomi London), and numerous retreats and teachings with the founder of Core Process Psychotherapy, Maura Sills, whose teaching I hold as my core practice both in my day-to-day life and my therapeutic practice. I have a longstanding embodied mindfulness practice which has evolved over 30 years study and appreciation of various traditional transpersonal teachings.
My weekly outdoor practice within the Japanese garden inside my local park is an integral part of my life. I have an longstanding interest in various traditional, martial, spiritual and meditative practices from China, India and Persia alongside Alexander Lowen’s Bioenergetics, the Feldenkrais Method and the creative energy of functional movement. I am a certified teacher of Hun Yuan Qi-Gong and basic structural body balancing (Institute of Contemporary Qi Gong) and, if desired, I can incorporate experiential embodied movement into our counselling work together. I have found this to be both energetically grounding and releasing especially in outdoors therapy.
My practice as a mindfulness-based gestalt therapist is founded on the neuro-psychology of philosophy as a means to enquire into the gestalt maxim that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The focus is to bring an awareness to what is figural for us in the moment as well as to maintain a phenomenological attunement to what is occuring in our wider field of awareness. This requires us to intentionally and attentively dwell simultaneously in both the acute focus of loci offered by the neural processing of the left hemisphere of the brain alongside the more expansive awareness provided by that of the right. As we embody this mindful practice, paying attention in the here-and-now, we reach a more fluid state of homeostasis and wellbeing.
I hold an honours degree in Modern Arts (Kingston University) and bring an experiential creativity to my counselling practice. This essentially grew from the building blocks of the Philosophies of Nature and History of Ideas modules that were core to my learning, most especially the play between the values and ideals of the Age of Enlightenment and Romanticism that deeply mirror our neurology. I have previously tutored 8-week group courses in Embodied Mindfulness and Mindful Compassion (Centre for Better Health, Hackney), centred upon cultivating a healing compassion towards ourselves and others.
I have had articles published in Therapy Today and The Journal of the Blake Society. I am currently writing a book, Stepping Through the Outdoors of Perception, which has a persona of my experiences over the past decade working outdoors in London and an emerging shadow of the multiplicity of diversity, difference, light and shade, that forms the matrix of city life.
"As long as there's me, As long as there's you."
David Bowie, Where Are We Now
David Bowie, Where Are We Now
