The Recovery Practice is a counselling, psychotherapy and supervision practice that aims to help people who are experiencing emotional distress make a full recovery. I work with others to provide an accessible set of services that meet people’s needs.
I started work at the Cotswold Community, a therapeutic community in Wiltshire in 1978 after studying English Language and Literature at college. I worked there for 5 years, managing an intermediate unit for young men who had had a difficult start to life. I went on to manage a leaving care service in Islington, London, called the Stepping Stone Community. During this period I studied Psychology and Anthropology at Goldsmith’s College. In 1988 I took up a post as Director of Off Centre, a young people’s counselling service in Hackney and was able to combine counselling practice with management and leadership responsibilities. I have always considered it important that managers have an element of direct work with clients to help them keep in touch with the issues that people who use a service might have.
I have had the opportunity to work over a number of years with people who have experienced severe trauma and abuse and this has given me a good understanding of the dilemmas facing vulnerable people. I am concerned that as many as possible are able to make a full recovery from these awful experiences.
From 1996 until 2010 I was the CEO at Leeds Mind, a local Mind association where I established several innovative and effective services which enabled people to make a full recovery from mental health problems.
Since 2011 I have worked in private practice and am fortunate to have been able to continue my work with people who experience symptoms of dissociation for which I would like to thank those I have worked with who have recommended me to others.
To see my entry at the BACP Directory, follow this link
I am also a poet and have had three books published by Anvil, the most recent of which is Planet-Struck, published in January 2011. A fourth collection, Desolate Market was published by Carcanet in the summer of 2018.