I am a UKCP-registered psychotherapist working in Kent, Buckinghamshire, and online. I also volunteer and offer low-cost therapy with the Margate-based charity The Perfect Place To Grow.
My route into psychotherapy has been shaped by a long-standing relationship with the body, creativity, and non-verbal forms of expression. From an early age, music, movement, and art offered ways of making sense of experience when words felt limited. This continues to inform my interest in how emotional and psychological distress communicates — often indirectly — through sensation, image, behaviour, and symbol.
I trained at the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education (CCPE) in London, completing a Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy between 2012 and 2017, and have been accredited with the UK Council for Psychotherapy since 2017. My training sits within a humanistic and integrative, transpersonal tradition, which places the individual at the centre of the work and allows space for questions of meaning, symbolism, and inner life to be explored in a grounded and non-dogmatic way.
Alongside psychotherapy training, I have a background in yoga, movement, and fine art. I began practising yoga in my late teens and later taught for several years, including within NHS mental health settings and charitable organisations. These experiences continue to shape my sensitivity to embodiment, rhythm, and the ways people regulate and express themselves beyond language.
I also hold a Research Masters in Transpersonal Psychotherapy, completed with distinction in 2024. My research explored the psychological impact of diagnostic labelling, particularly in relation to dyslexia, and examined how experiences of shame, difficulty, and self-doubt can be better understood through nervous system regulation and relational support. This work reinforced my interest in psychotherapy that looks beyond diagnosis towards meaning, adaptation, and capacity.
My work is also informed by an awareness of losses that are not always publicly recognised — including fertility struggles, childlessness, and the impact these experiences can have on identity, relationships, and meaning.
Alongside private practice, I have worked in NHS neuropsychiatry, community psychotherapy services, and psychotherapy training contexts. These varied settings have informed my understanding of how psychological distress is shaped not only by individual history, but also by relational, cultural, and systemic factors.
What matters most to me in my work is authenticity — both mine and my clients’. I am interested in what happens when people are supported to move out of habitual self-monitoring or self-criticism and into a more direct relationship with their lived experience. I aim to offer a space that is thoughtful, boundaried, and respectful, where exploration can unfold at a pace that feels manageable and real.
Main Qualifications:
Masters In Transpersonal Counselling & Psychotherapy
with Distinction 2023-2024
Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy and UKCP Accredited Professional PostGrad Dipl 2017
RYT200 (Registered Yoga Teacher) 2009
Fine Art BA (Hons) 2006
CPD (Continual Professional Development):
Addiction. Affliction? Or a guide to wholeness? – Lynn Somerfield – 2019
Art therapy with young people who self-harm and/or express suicidal ideation – BAAT – 2025
Attachment Theory in Clinical Practice (short course) – Orit Badouk-Epstein at The Bowlby Centre – 2019
De-escalation Training alongside other induction training with the NHS – 2016
Certificate in Clinical Assessment Skills – WPF – 2017
Implicit Psychotherapy and Somatic Psychology – Abi Blakeside – 2023
Lasting Love with Esther Perel – The School of Life – 2018
Mothering The Bones – Kimberley Ann Johnson – 2025
Nonviolent Communication, ‘Connecting in Conflict’ – Yoram Mosenzon – 2018
Non-Violent Communication and Conflict Resolution with Yoram Mortensen -Intermediate and Advanced Trainings – 2025
Shame Matters Conference – The Bowlby Centre – 2018
The Hungry Ghost, A Biopsychosocial Perspective on Addiction… – Gabor Mate – 2018
Total Yoga Nidra Teacher and Facilitator Training – Uma and Nirlipta Dinsmore-Tuli – 2013
Wholeness in Fractured Times – a real-world understanding of the nervous system and feminine sexuality & Activate your Inner Jaguar – Kimberly Ann Johnson – 2022
Well Women Therapy – Uma Dinsmore-Tuli – 2011
Wild Power: Embrace your menstrual cycle, reclaim the feminine path to power – Alexandra Pope, Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer – 2017
Yoga for the Mind Conference – The Minded Institute – 2011
Yoga for ME and Chronic Fatigue – Fiona Agombar – 2010
Some environments I have worked in:
As a Psychotherapist:
Private Practice: 2017 – current (sabbatical taken in 2024 to complete Research Masters in Psychotherapy)
Facilitation of Second Year Gestalt Psychotherapy Module of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Diploma, CCPE, 2021-2023
Women and Health, A Women only community-based health centre offering NHS-funded, where I provided short-term Counselling and Psychotherapy. Camden. 2016-2019
FreshStart Psychotherapy, A community Interest Company offering low-cost, where I provided long-term psychotherapy. Paddington. 2017-2019
Neuropsychiatry Outpatient Ward, where I provided both short-term and long-term psychotherapy, Kent and Medway NHS. Sevenoaks. 2014-2016
The Caravan, Drop-in counselling and psychotherapy service where I provided both drop-in, short term and long-term psychotherapy. St James’s Piccadilly. 2014-2016
As a Yoga Teacher (see website for more info – www.uyoga.co.uk):
Self-Employed: I have experience hosting and facilitating day, weekend and weeklong yoga workshops and retreats, as well as regular weekly yoga classes, where I learned to manage a range of needs in a group situation. 2010 – 2019
NHS: Teaching Yoga to male residents of a psychiatric recovery unit and women residents on an acute psychiatric unit within the NHS Mental Health Trust. 2010-2014
Body and Soul Charity: Teaching yoga and volunteering with adults living with HIV and AIDS. 2012