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About Bristol Creative Therapy

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I began my training journey as a therapist after gaining a Certificate in Counselling Skills from UWE, Bristol in 2005. A few years later I started my training as a Play Therapist and in 2020 I fully qualified as a Counsellor for adults. I have worked with a wide range of people with differing backgrounds and experiences. In the past I have received extensive inclusion, equality and diversity training as a practitioner and manager whilst living and working in one of the most diverse communities in the South-West.

I am a PTUK Accredited Play Therapist with experience of working in primary schools and community settings since 2012. I have a background working with children, young people and families as a mentor, support worker and youth worker in Bristol since 2004 and previously had a career as a IT and data professional. I undertook specific training in Counselling Young People and Adolescents in 2017.

 

​I am also a BACP Accredited Counsellor with a Diploma in Humanistic and Integrative Counselling from BCPC in Bath with experience since 2017 working with adults. In my therapy work so far I have counselled people who have experienced anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, chronic pain, grief and loss, shame, neglect and trauma.

 

I have been in private practice working with adults since 2019.​ I hold an Association for Counselling & Therapy Online (ACTO) Accredited and National Counselling Society approved Certificate in Online & Telephone Counselling.

I qualified as a Creative Clinical Supervisor with PTUK in 2024 and I supervise trainee and qualified Play Therapists in their work with children as well as qualified professionals from any modality. ​

 

I hold enhanced DBS to work with children, young people and vulnerable adults as well as professional indemnity insurance.

Recent Training

2023

  • Kate Williams (online) - Polyvagal theory

a 2-hour webinar on theory and techniques to tone the vagus nerve from Deb Dana, Stephen Porges and others.

  • PTUK Conference - Helping Children Speak the Unspeakable

An inspiring conference keynote presentation with Paris Goodyear-Brown on her TraumaPlay technique. Attended a workshop on Polyvagal theory and mindfulness.

  • Counselling Tutor (online) - General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)

Webinar exploring the requirements and considerations of GDPR (data protection) for therapists.

  • BACP C&YP Conference - Breaking the cycle of trauma and promoting healing and hope

Keynote speeches by Clare Harrison-Breed and Renee Marks on Trauma and Dissociation in children. Attended workshops on Working Creatively with Dissociation and Polyvagal theory.

  • BACP Private Practice Conference (online) - Am I OK? Are we OK? Anxiety in an uncertain world

Keynote speech by Emmy van Deurzen - befriending your anxiety: an existential perspective, plus two workshops Jenny Collard - Relationship agony: working with the anxiously attached and David Veale - Pure "O" anxiety

2022

  • Counselling Tutor (online) - Engaging with Supervision

Webinar on how to use supervision effectively ​

  • CaPPP - Disorderly Eating

​Event on Disorderly Eating with Vathani Navasothy and Katina Noble​

  • Nick Totten (online) - Power in the Therapy Relationship

Workshop considering the power dynamics in therapy and how to counteract them

  • Creative Clinical Supervision

Seven day experiential training to develop creative clinical supervision skills

  • NAS Conference (online) - Autism & Mental Health​

Watched keynotes and attended workshops on: Masking – impact on mental health and identity; Autism, trauma and PTSD; Autism and loneliness; Alexithymia's role in the common mental health difficulties in autism; Defining, measuring, and understanding autistic burnout

  • NICABM (online) - Trauma Master Series 

Webinars from world renowned experts such as Dan Siegel, Stephen Porges, Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine and Allan Schore

  • Kate Williams (online) - Compassion in Therapy​: the antidote to depression & trauma

Webinar focused on compassionate and mindful approaches to treat traumatised and depressed clients

2021

  • Unity Young People (online) - LGBTQ+

Training to increase confidence working with young people exploring issues around sexuality and gender. Improving knowledge and understanding of current LGBTQ+ identities by reflecting on our existing understanding and unconscious bias.

  • University of Derby (online) - Understanding Autism, Asperger's & ADHD 

Module covering the classification, assessment, aetiology theories, comorbidity, and treatment for both ADHD and Autism Spectrum Conditions. 

  • Susie Orbach - Eat your Heart out

CaPPP event with Susie reminiscing on 'Fat is a Feminist Issue' and reflecting on the psychology of body image.

  • Compassion in Therapy Summit

Event on compassionate approaches with webinars from Paul Gilbert, Kristen Neff, Richard Schwartz, Dan Siegal & Chris Germer.

  • BACP (online) Children & Young People's Online Lives

BACP event exploring the risks and importance of online applications in the lives of children and young people. Exploring the assumptions and biases adults have about online activity and the importance of online identity in the social hierarchy of young people.

  • NSPCC (online) - Safeguarding Refresher​

Training to refresh and renew my knowledge of safeguarding reporting practices, abuse categories, how to recognise signs of abuse and relevant case studies to explore the issues

2020

  • Thinking Allowed (online) - 'Blue, Red, Green'

Thinking Allowed (Bristol specialist CAMHS for adopted & looked-after children) course exploring the world of children who are care experienced and who are on the Autism spectrum.

  • Counselling Tutor (online) - Certificate in Online & Telephone Counselling

​Comprehensive training on the BACP competencies for online and telephone counselling

  • OU (BACP), BCPC & OTI (online) - Online working webinars

Webinars to increase my understanding and skills of online working in the COVID-19 pandemic world

  • NICABM (online) - Trauma Master Series 

Five hour-long webinars from world renowned experts such as Dan Siegel, Stephen Porges, Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine and Allan Schore on treating trauma through different modalities thinking about attachment, dissociation, shame, relationships and more.

  • BACP (online) - Private Practice Conference​

Keynote and workshops: Movement and Feeling - William Pullen; Understanding and Supporting Autistic Clients
- Lisa Cromer; Creative approaches to therapeutic communication - Ani de la Prida; Confidentiality and communication: maintaining ethical boundaries when deal
ing with the parents of young adult clients - Sally Brown; ​Missed communications: errors we make when communicating across groups - Keon Brown.

2019

  • Liz Martin - All Parts are Welcome (Internal Family Systems)

Bristol Psychotherapy Society talk introducing the IFS model

  • Tara Brach (online) - Shame & RAIN

Using compassion and mindfulness to transform feelings of unworthiness and shame

  • Margot Waddell - Adolescence

Event exploring adolescence and adolescent states of mind.

  • Martin Capps - The Secret Agent of Shame

Workshop looking at the theory and investigating the embodied meaning of shame within us.

  • PTUK Conference - The Social Mind Evolution & Development

An inspiring conference keynote presentation and workshop with the psychotherapist and neuroscientist Louis Cozolino on the evolution of the human mind into a social organ and how individual minds adjust, communicate and regulate one another.

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