My Lived Experience
It feels to me that I am privileged to have built up a wealth of experience during 30 years of working with and learning from so many people. I have worked with lots of different people in a wide range of voluntary and statutory health and social care settings.
Before counselling adults, my experiences have included working with homeless people, with children and young people, with the elderly, and supporting families under stress.
Since November 2016, I have worked therapeutically with adults and young people who have been experiencing difficulties, including depression, stress, anxiety, relationship worries, abuse, childhood and adult trauma, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, loss, and bereavement.
As part of my training to become a counsellor, I recall my own journey when initially seeking personal therapy and how hard it was to trust someone and tell them my story. Through several years of personal therapy, I explored the experiences I endured during my childhood and adolescence and pulled apart some of my conscious and unconscious thoughts, beliefs and feelings and was able to integrate a new sense of self and experienced personal growth.
After several years of personal therapy and ongoing deep reflection and development I have found a new path in my life, a path where I am now more present in my life. Through being-in personal counselling, the experiences I endured during my childhood and adolescence no longer unconsciously haunt me and through learning to trust the therapeutic process, I have learnt to trust myself and have found inner self-integration.
From my Lived Experience, I have learnt , although tentatively, that aligning myself to Taoist and Buddist philosophy has been helpful for me to find inner stillness and adopt a more mindful and spiritual path. I have used a daily meditation and mindful practice for over two decades, which has helped me to connect with inner calm.
Other things that help with my mental and emotional health and wellbeing include:
- walking and being in nature
- listening to music
- reading poetry
- reading stories
- looking at art
- cooking
- gardening
- writing, painting and generally creating things.
From engaging with the above, I find these connect me to deeper experiences of what it is to be human. I am interested in other people and have an open, curious and non-judgmental approach and view other people as the experts in their lives.
Ethics and Values
All my work as a counsellor is in accordance with the ethical framework of BACP.
I practise as an ethically and culturally responsible counsellor with Anti-Discriminatory and Anti-Oppressive values guiding my work. As part of my Continuing Professional Development, I aim to explore my identity through seeking to understand my conscious and unconscious attitudes.
As part of my ‘life-long’ ongoing personal and professional enquiry and reflection, I refer to a number of books including:
Alex Iantaffi and Meg-John Barker (2018), How to Understand Your Gender: A practical guide for exploring who you are
Kate Bornstein (2013), My new Gender Workbook
Alex Iantaffi (2021), Gender Trauma; Healing Cultural, Social, and Historical Gendered Trauma
Charles Neal (2014), The Marrying Kind? Lives of gay and bi men who marry women
Leezah Hertzmann and Juliet Newbigin (2020), Sexuality and Gender Now: moving beyond heteronormativity
Amelia Abraham (2021), We Can Do Better Than This; 35 Voices on the Future of LGBTQ+ Rights
Resmaa Menakem (2021), My Grandmother’s Hands; Racialised Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
Andrea L. Dottolo and Ellyn Kaschak (2016), Whiteness and White Privilege in Psychotherapy
Julie Sondra Decker (2015), The Invisible Orientation; An Introduction to Asexuality
