... where applied neuroscience
meets ancient wisdom ...
Psychotherapy offers a safe space for you to explore unresolved inner and outer challenges, with the goal of helping you find stability and greater peace of mind. I provide a confidential service where listening is key as you express your concerns; whether related to health, relationships, work, the world we live in, depression, anxiety, grief, self-esteem issues and more. We take the time to go at your own pace, working through troubling memories or current situations to bring greater acceptance, resolution, insight and clarity to your current experience. Difficult life decisions can be brought into focus in counselling, enabling you to explore what your heart really wants beyond what your head tells you has to happen, or vice versa!
The Japanese word ‘Kintsugi’ describes a way of fixing broken pottery using a type of golden putty that gives the repaired piece a new beauty distinct from what it was before.
In many ways this is a perfect way to understand the process of psychotherapy. Through building a relationship based on empathy and authenticity, we work together to reassemble a fragmented sense of self with the gold of new insight and deeper self-knowledge. This has a name: post traumatic growth. It is a process of healing that makes us more alive, compassionate, courageous and generally well-rounded: more Human.
Psychologists have a name for this: ‘post-traumatic growth’. The three elements involved are:
- Improved perceptions of self
- Closer relationships
- Changed philosophies on life
kintsugi
‘the art of repair’
… a traditional technique, which, rather than hiding the damage, celebrates repair work, honouring flaws as part of unique character. Kintsugi finds beauty in imperfection, and embraces change over time …
…An ‘improved perception of self’ brings about greater acceptance, and agency in life, leading to regaining a sense of peace and a measure of control.
‘Closer relationships’ arise from understanding more about the particular nature of our defence mechanisms. In understanding the roots of our protective strategies, often discovered when examining our childhood experience, we are encouraged to develop more self-compassion. With that comes the natural dismantling of obstacles to intimacy.
These profound shifts, facilitated by a supportive and empathic therapist, remind us of the bigger picture, and lead towards our embracing ‘changed philosophies of life’ and the excitement of new beginnings…
This gives a sense of how we work with the therapeutic process in the room together, paying close attention to your uniqueness and particular life situation, and going at a pace set by you… Overall, we are priming ourselves to make better, more inspired, life choices, thus creating a sense of momentum and optimism towards the future…
About
Qualifications and Training:
- Postgraduate Certificate in Person Centred Counselling from the University of Aberdeen
- Level 3 in Integrative Counselling with Heartwood Counselling and Psychotherapy
- Foundation Certificate in Buddhist counselling from the Tariki Trust
- IFS Level 1 (ongoing)
- AEDP 5-day immersion (May ’26)
- Psychophonetics Level 1 (parts work) with Yehuda Tagar
- Extensive Emotional Logic Training with Dr Trevor Griffiths
- Landmark Education: Leadership, Coaching and Communication
About
I have been a student of body-mind-spirit connections for almost 40 years, starting with yoga and meditation classes aged 18, as well as immersing myself in nature through a 20+ year career in horticulture and garden design. I have also raised a son single handed and renovated my house twice, turning it into 3 flats. I’m also a self-published author of a work of non-fiction titled ‘UnEldered’.
I’ve taught professionally in different settings: Emotional Logic – a method for metabolising loss – with Dr Trevor Griffiths, and Lectured in Garden Design with Bicton College. I have also mentored with the Dartington School of Social Entrepreneurs.
In the last decade, I’ve retrained as a counsellor and psychotherapist, including travelling the world in search of inspiring teachers; turning a life-long passion into a third career. I have a particular interest in trauma, attachment and the nervous system, and have trained in contexts where sex-positive attitudes were the norm. I established myself in private practice working from home in 2022.
In addition to my therapy work, I’m a mother and grandmother, and enjoy walking on nearby Dartmoor every day.
Specialisms
- ADHD
- Narcissistic personality traits
- Healing the inner child
- CPTSD (complex trauma)
- Attachment issues
- Women’s cycles and
- Menopause
- Sex and Intimacy Issues
- Dissociation
- Chronic shame
- Nervous system dysregulation and chronic conditions
- New Beginnings – re-orienting to a life of your choosing.
I combine person-centred, trauma-informed and mindfulness-based approaches to ensure we explore at your own pace, using tools that include the whole person – body, heart and head. At all times my job is to help expand your ability to see yourself clearly. From extensive studies in Buddhism and Mindfulness, I’ve learned about deconstructing and reconstructing our ego identities. This delicate dance requires patience and sensitivity, yet also appropriate challenge… I work from a felt sense of the territory, and an in-depth understanding of the ways we distort ourselves to adapt and survive hostile conditions.
Working together, we begin to recognise that what was once an ‘adaptive strategy’ in childhood is now a ‘maladaptive pattern’ in adulthood; one that impedes positive change.
Hope is an outcome of counselling, and even positive change needs to be integrated into our sense of ourselves. If we develop a warm curiosity towards what might seem disjointed or confusing, we can discover unexpected connections and create new understandings based on scientific – or even spiritual – maps of meaning that unify experience.
Emboldened in this way, we learn to rewrite life scripts to include thriving, belonging and acceptance as facets of deep and lasting change. It’s a bit like taking off a nightmarish VR headset, or an ill-fitting tight helmet with tiny eye slits, to discover a new reality that was always closer at hand than we first imagined.
Read more about how I work, and my approach to integrating knowledge of the nervous system and neurobiology in therapy.
Developing insight
Therapy is often described as a reflective practice. Reflection is what allows us the very essential activity of creating connections between thinking and reality. It’s how we make meaning, indeed process our lived experience, noting how we are impacted by others, even as we ponder how our behaviours might impact them.
In this way, we develop insight – recognising chains of cause and effect – discerning and deciphering the sometimes puzzling twists and turns of our lives …
I offer 1-2-1 sessions with adults, face to face in my home in Ashburton, Devon, and online.
I specialise in short term therapy – somewhere from 6 to 15 sessions and believe that with intentionality and focus we can progress relatively quickly, getting to the ‘heart of the matter’. This, in and of itself, begins to catalyse change.
The place I work from is quiet, light and airy, and has vaulted ceilings and oak beams. The desire is to make you feel at home, safe, comfortable and welcome in a cosy and calming environment.
Pricing
One and a half hours
£80
- for an in-depth, one-off 90 minute session
- perfect for an in-depth analysis of a specific issue
Six sessions
£300
For a block of 6 sessions. Discount when you:
- pay in full in advance
- consistency and commitment produce results!
I offer free 15 minute clarity calls if you’d like to discuss working together.
If you prefer to be on the move or outdoors, I can accommodate walking and talking therapy, or finding somewhere pleasant to sit outside in nature – weather permitting.
I always hold one or two spots for people on low incomes; Please do reach out and enquire.
