I am a higher accredited practitioner. I have practiced since 2020, within charities, employee support programs and privately.

During this time, I have helped people from many different backgrounds, who have been suffering mentally or emotionally. Some, though not all, have had medical diagnoses such as depression, anxiety, (C)PTSD or addiction.

Having trained as an integrative counsellor, I have developed my philosophy of practice to combine relational and analytic psychotherapy approaches. This essentially means I provide a focus on what happens between people, and how things outside awareness may affect us.

I have a particular interest in helping people who have long experienced difficulty in getting by — or along with others — especially when the reasons for this may have felt confusing or unclear.

People come to therapy for very individual reasons, but it is not uncommon to feel your usual ways of coping are no longer working. For some, this follows a crisis or a significant loss, while for others it is because a lifelong pattern gets recognised. Perhaps a symptom, situation or type of relationship seems to keep coming up, holding you back from where you want to be?

Some of what you come for may be clear at the beginning and other things might emerge gradually, during our time together. Many people arrive here because a question — about who they are or where they belong — has grown too pressing to ignore. For those who enter therapy, it makes sense not to ask these questions alone.

To start with, I suggest that someone who feels counselling & psychotherapy could be helpful makes an initial appointment. This gives us a chance to find out what it’s like to speak together. Here, there will also be an opportunity to discuss any questions or concerns you might have. If you want to go further, we can then arrange the practical aspects of meeting regularly.

Therapy takes time, and it is usual to come once or twice a week for a while. A consistent and reliable setting helps you to gradually approach even troubling topics. Counselling & psychotherapy are a private conversation, free of the expectations or assumptions of everyday life.

Central to Ayr, my practice room has convenient on-street parking, and is within easy distance of the bus station and a 10-minutes walk from the train station. It is reachable from nearby towns, including Prestwick, Troon, Irvine, Maybole and Girvan. There is one wide, gentle flight of stairs with a single wooden banister.

For those who cannot attend in person, telephone and video sessions are available.

My fee is between £45-65 per session, which I arrange with you individually when we first meet. This is then billed once per month for all appointments, including the first.

Entering therapy acknowledges a sincere commitment to yourself. An opportunity to be inquisitive about your inner life and your connection with others. Here, you may speak openly about whatever matters to you.

My approach would suit someone who feels ready to delve into their experience in a sustained way. This kind of therapy feels rather different to ones which use set worksheets and protocols. I don’t make diagnoses or prescribe medication, nor do I give advice or strategies for particular situations. My presence in this process is aimed at facilitating new perspectives.

People who try this for a time often discover a capacity to notice, feel and live with all kinds of emotions. The path of therapy is seldom direct, and we may be surprised along the way, perhaps finding ourselves speaking about your dreams, fascinations and longings.

Theories which inform my approach suggest our formative experience happens primarily through interaction with others. Counselling & psychotherapy make it possible to reactivate these potentials, and in the context of our speaking together new possibilities for living can be realised.

I am sensitive to how individual identity sits alongside social belonging. Both can be precious to us, but also sources of conflict or dilemma. I also know how desire for change can be challenged by the need for stability, or by fearing we’ll lose something fundamental to who we are. Whether this concerns sexuality, gender, spirituality, being a carer for a dependent — or anything else — it is only by respecting these complexities that we can reach a position which feels truly your own.

Wherever your experience hasn’t met with recognition, as can happen in contexts like living with disability, being neurodivergent, surviving abuse or dealing with political and environmental threat, I would especially welcome working with you. Therapy can become somewhere the specific, private and personal needn’t always stay silent.

* UK Association of Humanistic Psychology Practitioners

** National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society