my background spans psychology, classrooms, education, research, fertility work and psychotherapy
the common thread has always been relationship
how I came to this work
I originally trained in psychology before spending many years in education and teacher training, eventually working as a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. Alongside teaching, writing and research, I became increasingly interested in the stories and narratives that people carry, the roles they learn to inhabit, and the ways experience shapes us over time.
Later, my work expanded into fertility, IVF, long awaited pregnancy and postnatal support through yoga teaching, women’s circles and birthwork. That experience continues to shape my psychotherapy practice today, especially my interest in grief, the body, reproductive stories, identity, waiting, uncertainty and becoming
Across all of these settings, I have been drawn to the same questions: how do we come to understand ourselves, how do we survive what happens to us, and what helps us feel more fully alive in relationship with ourselves and others?
qualifications and training
Psychotherapy and clinical training
Advanced clinical trainee psychotherapist, training in Transactional Analysis psychotherapy at The Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy, September 2023 to present
Weekly clinical placement in a low-cost psychotherapy clinic in Manchester
Perinatal training with Emma Haynes, The Psychotherapy Institute
Group Therapy Training, The Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy
Regular clinical supervision
UKCP trainee member
Academic background
Psychology BSc
PGCE in Primary Education
MA in Education
Former Senior Lecturer in Education and Teacher Training at Manchester Metropolitan University 2008-2021
Fertility, yoga and body-based training
Alongside my psychotherapy training, I bring many years of experience supporting people through fertility, IVF, pregnancy after infertility, pregnancy loss, postnatal life and reproductive transition.
This part of my work began through yoga, doula work, women’s circles and body-based support. It continues to shape the way I think about grief, waiting, uncertainty, body stories, identity and the emotional complexity of reproductive experience.
Additional Trainings
200 hours Yoga Teacher Training ‘The Yoga Life Project’
Pregnancy Yoga Training with Yoga Mama
Fertility Yoga Training with Yoga Mama
Menopause Yoga Training with Petra Coveney
Aromatherapist Level 3 Certification
Post Natal Yoga Training with Yoga Mama
a little more personally
Alongside my professional life, I am a mother, a partner, a friend, a reader, writer and artist, a runner, a body that needs movement, and someone who knows that life doesn’t always unfold in the neat order we imagined.
My work has been shaped by training, study and clinical practice, but also by the ordinary and extraordinary experiences of being human: love, loss, illness, grief, motherhood, change, uncertainty and the slow, archeological work of finding ourselves again when life has altered us.
Much of my work is about slowing down around the things we have learned to carry quickly: old roles, old fears, old griefs, and the ways we have adapted around them. I believe therapy can offer a place to understand those patterns without shame, so that change does not have to come from forcing ourselves to be different, but from getting to know ourselves more truthfully.
A particular thread in my work is how Transactional Analysis can help us understand the emotional and relational impact of reproductive experience, from fertility treatment and loss to pregnancy, birth, postnatal life and identity change. I will be adding a dedicated page on this soon.
