Professional qualifications
I am a dual trained adult and child and adolescent psychotherapist. I am registered and accredited by the UKCP as a specialist child and adolescent psychotherapist, as well as being an accredited registered member of the BACP and an EMDR therapist.
I have many years of experience working with children, young people and adults – both within school settings and in private practice. I am also the founder and director of BOUNCE! Brighter Futures Foundation, a registered charity based in Devon.
Background
Before I trained as a psychotherapist, I worked for many years as a community pharmacist — a role grounded in science, yet always touching on people’s pain, complexity, and resilience. Alongside that, I completed a Master’s in Creative Writing. Stories had always been part of who I was and some of my earliest memories are of sitting in the local library, lost in The Tales of Beatrix Potter, transfixed by the soft colour plates veiled in tracing paper. Even then, stories felt like a refuge — a way to understand the world, and myself. They offered comfort, companionship, and insight into the human experience. I think it was this, amongst other things, that would eventually lead me toward psychotherapy.
The ’amongst other things’ was my own story.
I was a solitary, anxious child. When I was four, I remember standing alone in the schoolyard, watching the other children play, not just feeling different — but suspecting I was the problem. I often felt like there was a secret to belonging, as if everyone else had been given a piece of information that I had somehow missed. I tried hard to mimic others, to fit in, to “get it right” — but it rarely worked, and even when it did, I never felt secure in my place.
At twelve, I made a conscious decision to try and be like the other girls — copying their handwriting, gestures, and words. It helped, but the cost was high: I lived in a constant state of effort, vigilance, and inner disconnection.
My teenage years were marked by further loss when my mother died. In adulthood, I experienced postnatal depression and what I now recognise as undiagnosed perinatal OCD. Shame kept me silent, which made it harder to access support. That silence, and the harm it caused, later inspired me to write my story ‘Shadow Monster’, in the hope that no other parent would feel as alone as I did.
For a while, life became more stable, but it changed dramatically again in 2005 when our youngest son, then eight, began to struggle with school attendance. I’ll never forget the image of him clinging to the doorframe while I tried to prise his fingers free.
Even then, I knew it wasn’t right, but it wasn’t until a few months later we decided that I would give up work as a pharmacist, withdraw him from school and home-educate. It was a difficult decision. Judgement was commonplace and difficult to bear; a kind of fearful shunning was worse. People seemed to be concerned that our ‘condition’ might be contagious. One of my most painful memories was trying to arrange a playdate for my son only to be repeatedly turned down by the mothers’ of his friends. They didn’t want to know him, or me, anymore. It broke my heart.
It was my need to make sense of what was happening that set my psychotherapy training in motion. Over the years, pieces started to slot into place but there was always something missing. Somehow, things didn’t quite add up and it wasn’t until 2023 when I received my autism diagnosis that suddenly everything made sense. Now, all my experiences, things that had once seemed shadowy and unknowable, were brought into sharp relief.
I sometimes wish I’d had that knowledge earlier, especially in my twenties, and when my children were small. But I also know that the path I’ve taken has given me insight, empathy, and a deep understanding of what it means to live without a map.
These experiences now inform everything I do — from the way I practise as a psychotherapist, to the founding and running of a mental health charity and, of course, the writing of my books.
My hope is that because of it, I can help others find what we all need: compassion, understanding, and the freedom to be fully and unapologetically ourselves.