I started my career in mental health in 1985, when I began my training to become a Registered Mental Health Nurse (RMN). Over several years of working in a variety of settings, including Acute inpatient and community mental health, I realised how important it is to be able to help people to recognise and understand that making sense of situations and responding in a way that is beneficial to them and their emotional wellbeing, is vital to them achieving improvement in their mental health and being able to sustain that wellbeing throughout their life.

How we are able to engage with ourselves, others and the world in general is often influenced by our previous life experiences. If those experiences have been difficult or traumatic, we can develop unhelpful beliefs about all aspects of our lives, which can lead to periods of emotional distress affecting our mental health and wellbeing. To become more effective and able to help, I undertook further training and qualified as a Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist in 2002, as an EMDR Therapist in 2004, subsequently gained my MSc in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in 2013 and to better support the evidence-based benefits of medication and therapy, qualified as an Independent Prescriber in April 2025.   

Having worked in the NHS for 40 years in Primary Care and Secondary Care Mental Health Services and delivering therapy for Veterans of HM Forces and client groups who often find engaging with the prescriptive pathways offered difficult, my particular approach to delivering CBT is in a responsive and individualised way, to help ALL people to access a therapy with a strong evidence base for successfully helping people with a wide range of emotional and psychological difficulties. Yes, CBT is short-term therapy ( typically up to 20 sessions), focused and structured, but it should never be rigid and never about an individual fitting into an unreasonably prescriptive number of sessions, often less than is evidence-based for effective treatment and in recent years I have specialised in working with people who have been diagnosed with Autism and/or ADD or ADHD to make this therapy meaningful for them. 

I am fully accredited with the British Association for Cognitive and Behavioural Psychotherapies, on the Nursing and Midwifery Council Register as both a Nurse and Independent Prescriber, a member of EMDR UK and fully compliant with all the requirements for regular clinical supervision and annual Clinical and Professional Development required to maintain my professional registrations.

I am also a recognised Provider with Bupa, Aviva and Vitality and hold full professional indemnity insurance.

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