I have been practising since 2000 as a psychotherapist, and since 2002 as a supervisor then EMDR consultant. For 13 years, I was a training supervisor and experiential group facilitator at The Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education (CCPE) in London, where the freedom we were given as facilitators allowed me to pilot ways of teaching an integrative psychotherapy for developmental trauma in an experiential setting. Before that, I had taught my own courses and workshops, including a one-year foundation course in counselling and psychotherapy, and in 2016 I gave back all my teaching contracts to focus on running my own courses.

I am a former linguist and teacher (and professional dancer) with an MA from the University of Oxford and a PGCE from the Institute of Education, London. I have postgraduate diplomas in psychotherapy and supervision and a postgraduate certificate in dreamwork. I am also an EMDR Europe Accredited Consultant and integrate EMDR into all my work.

I learned to work with developmental trauma and dissociative disorders ‘from the bottom up’, from my own experience of healing and integration during a 7-year integrative psychotherapy, while practising yoga, and the many skilled teachers from whom I learned, taught me the power of working with the body to heal complex trauma. At the same time, I started reading everything I could find on understanding and working with trauma and dissociation, including the most recent developments, and attending courses and seminars. For instance, among many other courses, mostly in person, I have completed:

Dr Bessel van der Kolk’s Intensive Trauma Treatment and The Body Keeps the Score, Deborah Korn’s Working with Complex Trauma: Optimal Integration of Treatment Models, at the Cape Cod Institute in the US, Sarah Schlote’s Fundamentals of Somatic Experiencing, EMDR Europe Standard Accredited Training and Consultant Training, and advanced EMDR courses with Laurel Parnell in Attachment-Focused EMDR, Mark Brayne in Attachment-Informed EMDR and Dolores Mosquera in The Progressive Approach to EMDR and working with intimate partner violence, Arne Hofmann in the treatment of depression, Christiaan Vinkers on the integration of psychological and biological determinants of stress and trauma and new interventions, Arun Mansukhani on EMDR in intimate relationships, Susanne Leutner on EMDR, Ego States and Resilience, Jan Gysi on the differential diagnosis of CPTSD, partial DID and DID and implications for treatment, Ignacio Jarero on the AIP theoretical model and the expansion of the understanding of resilience, Manuela Spadoni on working with attachment to the perpetrator, Deborah Korn on fostering resilience in complex trauma survivors using EMDR, Boris Cyrulnik on the biological and cultural narrative of resilience, Luca Ostacoli on the treatment of neglect at the core of depression, Anabel Gonzalez on working with emotionally disconnected patients, Sarah Dominguez on understanding EMDR therapy as a transdiagnostic approach, and consultants’ training with Olivier Piedfort-Marin and Deany Laliotis.

The practice of psychotherapy continues to develop rapidly, informed by neuroscience and research, and I keep learning and updating my work through reading, consultation with colleagues, practising yoga and attending courses and conferences, most recently the EMDR Europe workshop conference in Valencia in 2022, and the research and practice conference in Bologna in 2023.