About me

I take an integrative approach to counselling. This means I adapt to what you need and want, using the most helpful elements of a variety of therapeutic styles. These include:

• person-centred counselling, which means that it is your concerns, priorities, and points of view that lead our work together;
• psychodynamic therapy, which explores how your past may be affecting your present and helps you to become aware of your unconscious feelings and beliefs;
• transpersonal therapy, which addresses the cultural or spiritual or creative world in which you live.
  

My counselling qualifications and more

I have a Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling from the Counselling and Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body. I am a registered member (MBACP) of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and so follow its ethical framework.

I also have a Certificate of Higher Education in psychology from Birkbeck, University of London.

Alongside my private practice, I work as a bereavement counsellor at St Joseph’s Hospice, Hackney, and for Headstrong Counselling. I have also worked as a befriender at Maytree Suicide Respite Centre in Finsbury Park.

Some other things that have shaped me

I was born and raised in Liverpool, where I went to a state-funded grammar school. In my late teens, I competed internationally in sport, giving me insights into ambition, dedication, and success. I went to university to study ancient Greek and Latin literature with philosophy.

I have worked as an editor in print and online journalism for many years – but for much of that time my main focus was on making art. In my thirties I did a second degree in fine art. Eventually I parked my artistic ambitions but I have retained insights into creative processes that I have used to help writers, artists, and others who want to make something new.

My career in journalism took me to the positions of digital editor, head of production and union rep at New Scientist, and managing editor at openDemocracy. Along the way I also worked for The Guardian, Nature, and – during a year in Johannesburg – the Mail & Guardian. I saw from both sides of the negotiating table how organisations function, and how they treat the people who work inside them.

I also worked as a photojournalist and video maker in West Africa. As well as witnessing military violence and stark poverty, I enjoyed great hospitality and mutual humour from the people I worked with. The experience fundamentally altered my understanding of the region and my relationship to it, particularly as a white European man.

Earlier in my adult life, I taught computer graphics, photography, and video production in further-education colleges in London. In this role I was able to help students in diverse groups focus their creative and professional ambitions and progress towards them.

I love living in London because it has given me friends and colleagues from so many different backgrounds: people from different countries, cultures, and classes. London’s energy inspires me, and I value the challenges that city life makes to my assumptions, opinions, and tastes.