I’ve been a dramatherapist working creatively with children, young people, adults and families for nearly 20 years. I’ve worked with local authorities, schools and charities and my clients have included older people, people with mental health issues and profoundly disabled young people, adopted and looked after children and their families. These days as well as working with private clients, I work at Beacon House, a nationally renowned trauma service as a therapist and clinical supervisor based in Cuckfield and Chichester.
I first moved house with my family when I was 2 years old and since then have lived in over 25 different ‘homes’ in the UK and abroad until 12 years ago when I stopped moving and settled down to live in East Sussex. Living my early life in this way has given me a flexibility and adaptability which I value in many areas of my life and a love for languages and dialects, and different cultures but it also contributed to an acute anxiety I felt as a child and a young adult. It required a lot of energy and suppression of who I was to fit in with constantly changing cultural norms and environments, and friendships, school and places. Not surprisingly perhaps, my clinical interests are attachment, developmental trauma, anxiety and loss. To further add to the blending of my professional and personal lives, my husband and I adopted one of our two sons, so I am well acquainted with the everyday lived experience of high anxiety and trauma.
It was only when I started to study dramatherapy that I realised how anxious I was! I was drawn to this form of therapy because it invites us to explore how our unconscious mind drives and motivates our behaviours. By allowing our unconscious mind to tell its story, which may be different from what our ‘thinking brain’ thinks is the truth, we can help all parts of ourselves to feel heard and have their needs met. Some of the ways that I invite my clients to access their unconscious are through artwork, movement, metaphor, story and voicework.
Nature has always been a source of solace for me and a place to escape to as I’ve moved from place to place; she was always there for me, albeit in different guises – moorland, mountains, forest, rivers, coast. Nature represents for me a place for me to be alone and contemplate life but also to enjoy with family and friends through physical activity and being in beautiful places.
When I’m not working and looking after the family, I like to spend time sculling (two oars not one), needlefelting, baking and hill walking to keep me on an even keel.