I draw from my training, practice and research in
psychotherapy, but also very different paths of my life
such as my work in conflict affected areas as well as
Buddhist and transpersonal practices. I spend part of my
working week with the British Army as a specialist and
psychologist. I have completed officer training at
Sandhurst and hold the rank of Captain.
My first career was in the United Nations, I spent several
years in different warzones like Afghanistan, Sri Lanka,
Eritrea and Timor L’Este leading educational, CIMIC and
SRHR projects. The intense focus of this work, the
relentless and immediate consequences of one’s actions in
it taught me grounding and efficiency.
My first degrees in psychology were in Sweden two decades
ago; they focused on children, CBT and psychodynamic
modalities. A decade later at NSPC London, I became the
first doctor of existential psychotherapy and counselling
psychology in the UK, as I presented my dissertation on
how humanitarians returning from warzones suffered more
from alienation than any form of PTSD, as previous
research had assumed.
I then worked with OTR Bristol – Bristol’s main young
people’s mental health charity – overseeing a substantial
service transformation as their Clinical Director. I led a
radical transformation of our ethos from being service led
to being user led, so that we went from being a
counselling only service to having an array of innovative
ways to engage. We saw an increase in the service by
several orders of magnitude and were awarded the King’s
Fund GSK Impact Award. My main work with young people
these days is as consultant psychologist and lead
supervisor for Empire
Fighting Chance' Boxing Therapy initiative which I
helped set up with Cat Taylor.
As a counterpoint to my UN work is the Buddhism, the yoga
and the shamanic work. I spent a year in Sri Lanka at a
Buddhist monastery whilst teaching Buddhist psychology at
Peradeniya University, I am a qualified Vinyasa yoga
teacher, and took part in Ian Reese’s brilliant and
absolutely bonkers shamanic Awen training. I also did two
years of Karuna Institute’s excellent and infuriating
Buddhist psychotherapy training, where I ended up setting
the chimney on fire.
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