Before training as a counsellor and psychotherapist, I spent twenty-five years working as a teacher within education. During that time, I supported young people, families, and colleagues through increasingly demanding emotional, personal, and professional challenges.

What stayed with me most throughout those years was not simply how much people were coping with — but how often they were coping alone.

Again and again, I saw people continuing to function outwardly whilst internally feeling anxious, emotionally overwhelmed, mentally exhausted, disconnected from themselves, or unsure how much longer they could continue carrying the pressure they were under.

Many had become so used to surviving within stress, responsibility, caring roles, or constant expectation that they no longer recognised how deeply it was affecting their wellbeing, relationships, confidence, identity, and nervous system over time.

This deeper understanding of human emotional experience became one of the reasons I felt drawn toward counselling and psychotherapy.

My work today is grounded in an integrative humanistic approach, which means I see every person as entirely unique. Rather than believing people should fit neatly into a particular model or diagnosis, I begin with understanding the individual sitting in front of me — their experiences, emotions, relationships, history, and the ways life has shaped how they move through the world.

I work relationally, compassionately, and collaboratively. Therapy with me is not about judgement, fixing, or being told how you should think or feel. It is about creating a space where you can safely slow down, breathe, reflect, untangle what has been building internally, and begin reconnecting with yourself more gently and honestly.

Alongside my therapeutic training, I hold a strong interest in the connection between emotional wellbeing, the nervous system, mind, and body. Often, anxiety, burnout, emotional exhaustion, overthinking, or feeling constantly “on alert” are not signs that something is wrong with you — but signs that your system has been carrying too much for too long.

Many people I work with describe feeling disconnected from themselves beneath years of pressure, responsibility, people-pleasing, caring for others, or constantly trying to hold everything together. Therapy offers an opportunity to begin understanding these patterns with compassion rather than criticism.

Through both professional experience and personal understanding of anxiety and stress, I recognise how difficult life can feel when the nervous system rarely has the opportunity to fully rest.

My approach is gentle, grounded, reflective, and emotionally attuned. I believe healing begins not through pressure or perfection, but through feeling emotionally safe enough to be fully heard, understood, and accepted as you are.

Alongside supporting adults, couples, and young people more broadly, my background within education gives me a particular understanding of the emotional pressures experienced by teachers, helping professionals, carers, and those who spend much of their lives supporting everyone else whilst quietly neglecting themselves.

Awaken Discovery was created from a desire to offer something more human within a world that often asks people to keep performing, coping, and pushing through regardless of how disconnected or exhausted they may feel inside.

I wanted to create a space where people could pause. A space where they no longer had to carry everything alone.

Therapy sessions with me are collaborative, supportive, reflective, and paced carefully around you. There is no expectation to explain yourself perfectly, have all the answers, or arrive knowing exactly where to begin.

Sometimes therapy may involve gently exploring emotions, patterns, relationships, anxiety, self-doubt, or experiences that have been difficult to process alone. At other times, it may simply involve having a space where you can finally exhale, speak honestly, and feel heard without pressure or judgement.

Above all, I believe therapy should feel human.