A bit about me

How I work:

My aim is for sessions to be engaging and enjoyable – life is full of difficult, tiresome, and boring activities. Let’s not put our development in the same bucket! If you’re interested, my influences are Positive, Person-Centred and Solutions-Focused psychology, Cognitive Behavioural, Acceptance and Commitment and Gestalt psychotherapy, systemic thinking, and family systems.

I also like to work creatively, so I often use my photographs when words aren’t enough - you find out more about that here. I’m not a therapist so if you have mental health issues please talk to your doctor, psychiatrist or therapist. 

Why not read what clients say about working with me, listen to my podcast The Tyranny of the Shoulds or check out my coaching blog.

My background and qualifications:

I'm a Chartered Coaching and Chartered Occupational Psychologist (regarded as Doctoral level training), an Associate Fellow of British Psychological Society (BPS), a Certified Principal Business Psychologist and Certified Business Coaching Psychologist, plus registered by the Health and Care Professions Council (Practitioner Psychologist/ Occupational). I’m a member of the Division of Coaching Psychology and listed on the BPS Register of Coaching Psychologists. I’m also an Accredited Member of the International Society for Coaching Psychology, and a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching confederation, the Association for Coaching, and the Career Development Institute.

I have a Diploma in Coaching Psychology and coaching qualifications in: stress management, performance coaching, solutions-focused, systemic coaching and transitions coaching. I have a basic level certificate in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Problem Focused Counselling. I’m dipping my toes into Internal Family Systems therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and am a certified organisational mediator.

I have professional civil liability insurance for psychology services (indemnity liability £5 million/public liability of £10 million). I abide by the British Psychological Society's code code of ethics - respect, competence, responsibility and integrity. I have regular supervision with a Chartered Coaching Psychologist which helps me to maintain coaching standards, increase my skills and ensure my practice continues to be safe, respectful and appropriate for clients. My supervisor and I are bound by confidentiality agreements. If you would like to read my GDPR policy, you can do that here.

Recent consulting experience includes running senior leadership development programmes and building coaching programmes for international organisations and running talent management interventions. For many years I worked at a global professional services and management consultancy firm, where I built an Executive Leadership Development Centre, set up coaching communities across the world, and ran a lot of client projects (communications, training, change management, culture change). I have been Head of Leadership Development for two retail banks in the UK, along with working at two boutique people development and psychology consultancies. 

I was also on BBC Radio recently talking about how challenging changing our behaviour can be. In the past I have been on BBC News talking about psychology, penned a series of blogs for HR websites, and wrote articles for The British Journal of Leadership in Public Services. A while back I also lectured at Kings College London on their Diploma in Organisational Psychology and Psychiatry.

All cartoons and illustrations by Simon Pearsall

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