Professional Background

Clinical and Therapeutic Experience
 

• One‑to‑one and group work in community counselling services

• NHS and third‑sector settings

• Educational and university environments

• Mental health and social care contexts

• Sport, exercise, and performance psychology contexts

• Private practice with adults and older adolescents

​

Areas of Particular Experience

​

• Creative and high‑performance industries

• Neurodivergent experiences

• Major life or career transitions

• Body image, lifestyle, and eating concerns

• Intuitive eating, body positivity/size acceptance

• Coercive control, domestic abuse, and cults/high‑demand groups

• Depression, anxiety and panic, trauma and PTSD

• Relationship and family issues

• Workplace issues, performance pressures, confidence and self‑esteem

• Spiritual, religious, and transpersonal experiences

• Grief, bereavement and loss

• Chronic conditions and mindbody wellbeing

• Cancer, existential or end‑of‑life concerns

​

Academic Roles and Research

​

I lecture and conduct research in counselling and psychotherapy, therapy ethics and human rights, behaviour and lifestyle change, health psychology, sport and performance psychology, and expressive/creative arts therapies at the University of Salford. I have also lectured in Music Psychology at BIMM, and I guest lecture/facilitate at various other HE institutions such as University of Derby, Edge Hill University and Metanoia Institute, London.

​

I have authored or co‑authored more than twenty peer‑reviewed publications and present at conferences to further the field of counselling/psychotherapy and expressive/creative arts therapies.

​

A key contribution from my doctoral research is Creative Therapeutic Flow as a therapeutic construct within creative therapies and as something that people often experience in creative activities and communities. I also co‑originated Arts for the Blues, an evidence‑based, pluralistic, multi‑modal creative psychological therapy developed through collaboration between the University of Salford and Edge Hill University and now used in NHS and other settings.

​

My ongoing interests are in progressive, creative and anti-oppressive research methods, such as arts-based research and community practice-as-research, which is informed by my own grassroots community arts projects and artistic practice.

​

Professional Registrations

​

• British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)

• Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy (ADMP)

• Previous registrations paused during PhD completion: Chartered Psychologist (BPS CPsychol) and Psychotherapeutic Counsellor (UKAHPP, an organisational member of the Humanistic Integrative Psychotherapy College of UKCP)​

​

For the full list of degrees and CPD, see Qualifications & Training. For how I work in the room, see My Approach.