Before training in counselling and psychotherapy I ran my own sound and lighting equipment company employing about a dozen people based in Luton for 13 years until I sold it in 1989. I began my active interest in psychology and subsequently psychotherapy in 1985 as I became gradually more interested in my own personal development and the development of my staff. Looking back on this I realise I was moving towards the work I do now, and when the time came to decide on my new career, it was a natural move to train in counselling, personal development and psychotherapy. I also ran an ongoing personal growth and development group for several years after I sold the business which on reflection was a bridge between running the company and working as a counsellor and psychotherapist.

My first formal training was at the Association for Bodymind Therapy in North London, and this included my initial training in counselling. This was more of an eclectic training than my later training which was more integrative, run by the late Glyn Seaborn-Jones who was well known in the Human Potential movement in the 1970’s and 80’s. This training also included voice work, art therapy, dance and movement work, bioenergetics group analytic work, meditation, and rebirthing.

I finished that training in 1992, and realising this was only a beginning for me began training at the Chiron Centre for Holistic Psychotherapy in West London later that year. I considered a number of training organisations but chose the Chiron Centre for two main reasons. The training offered was holistic and provided a diverse range of modules, including gestalt, biodynamic massage, holistic anatomy and biology, and Reichian based work and had a large experiential element. An essential part of the training was personal therapy for the duration of the training with a Chiron trained therapist. The word Chiron comes from Greek mythology (Heiron) and was a centaur who was seriously wounded and through appreciating his own wound was then able to help others. The philosophy behind the Chiron training was that of the wounded healer and that good therapists would evolve from those who knew their own psychological wounds in an embodied sense and therefore would be able to empathise with the wounds of others who wanted help and help them heal from their own inner resources. This was an important thing for me since it encouraged me to discover my own unique therapeutic approach from within rather than focus only on techniques. This has continued to develop over the years and brought me to more recently considering my work as “relational”, where an important focus particularly in long-term work is what happens (or doesn’t happen) in the sessions in my relationship with a client. The “integrative” aspect comes from the many different aspects of my training and experience which I have integrated into my work.

The second main reason for training with the Chiron Centre was that it was a member of the Humanistic and Integrative Section (HIPS) of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). This was important to me because I believed that I would be training with a recognised organisation which supported high professional standards.

I received the Certificate in Biodynamic Massage there in 1995. I don’t actually practice massage now but found that this massage training was valuable in giving me a deep understanding of the body and energy flow and how each person’s character is uniquely reflected in the body in very different ways.

I subsequently received the Chiron Certificate in Holistic Psychotherapy in 1997, at which time I joined the Association of Chiron Psychotherapists.

Later I trained in Post-Traumatic Stress therapy between 2000-2001 with Babette Rothschild. This was a particularly valuable training for me in terms of understanding trauma and its effects and greatly enhanced my ability to work in this important area.

I became accredited as a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist (Humanistic and Integrative Section) in June 2008.

I see my development as a therapist as an ongoing process and regularly engage in research, workshops, and further study of areas that take my interest at any given time.

I have engaged in a great number of workshops and groups in addition to the various training courses I have done, many of which have been residential and intensives. I have also engaged in many years of personal therapy since 1986, much of it also in addition to the basic requirements of the training courses.

In the beginning I engaged in hypnotherapy, then psychoanalysis, and then moved on to transactional analysis doing individual and group work. I then moved on to do gestalt work and after that generally more intense growth work including primal integration and bioenergetics. I also went to the Skyros Centre in Greece for a few summers and found the experience there very valuable and participated in a wide variety of workshops during those times. On reflection I realise that it was important for me to experience many different approaches in the earlier days in order to help me to find my “right place” as a therapist.

Following on from my interest in trauma when I trained with Babette Rothschild, I became particularly interested in neurobiology, something which I believe offers some fascinating and hopeful insights into human problems, and also offers an important bridge between the scientific and the world of psychology and therapy.

I was a member of the Association for Humanistic Psychology (Britain) from 1989 to 2007. I have been an Individual Member of the British Association for Counselling (and Psychotherapy) since 1990, and a member of the Bedfordshire Area Counselling and Psychotherapy Association since 1997. I was on the committee of the BACPA between 1997 and 2001, initially as Publicity Officer, and then as Chair.

I have been a member of the of Chiron Association of Body Psychotherapists ( formerly AChP) since 1997.

I have trained extensively in body psychotherapy as well as in many other areas of therapy and counselling. This involved a considerable amount of experiencing and practicing active and passive bodywork. Although direct bodywork techniques are not the main focus of my work these days, I see my experience from this part of my training as being invaluable since it has given me a profound embodied experience of working with the “whole person”. This experience was vital in bringing me to working in the way I have in more recent years, where I consider my psychotherapy and growth work as "relational". That means working within my relationship with the client without judgment with all that develops and appears, and accepting that whatever emerges has some meaning in the client's life and has some value in helping the client to heal and move forward in their life's journey.

Sometimes talking alone is enough and all that is appropriate but at others I may well suggest other ways of working in a more active or practical way, using a wide variety of techniques including gestalt, psychodrama, play therapy, breathing work, energy work, painting or drawing, movement and bodywork, relaxation, visualisation, focusing, boundary exercises, and so on.

All of my work is client led, that is to say that I don’t impose anything, but make suggestions for working with whatever is emerging at any given time.