I’m is a licensed and certified Grief Recovery Specialist® and a volunteer bereavement counsellor for a leading UK charity. I am brilliantly supported and supervised in my work.
For all I can say about my training and experience with clients, perhaps what matters most is that I know grief, and know what it is to live with it. Much more about that in the section below.
My Postgrad (Cert) in Psychodynamic Studies from the University of Oxford focused on attachment theory and unconscious processes such as grief, depression and anxiety. Psychotherapy has been a passion since my teens, and I’ve been seeking impactful ways of working with clients for much of my life, including a years’ training in counselling skills at Birkbeck in 2011. More recent training includes the leading US-based grief psychotherapist, Francis Weller.
Before this, I worked in education for over 20 years, eventually specialising in pastoral care. I’ve facilitated people from all walks of life, from primary through to post-grad level, and spent years coaching in communication skills at firms such as Ogilvy and Deutsche Bank.
What brought me to work with grief and loss
I have experienced multiple bereavements, but it wasn’t until my more recent counselling training that I realised the impact other losses have had on my life, which led me directly to The Grief Recovery Institute® in the States and the recovery process their founders developed.
I grew up in Ethiopia while my parents were aid workers during the famine of the mid 1980s. I saw things a child should never see, and was sometimes surrounded by intense loss and suffering.
I lost much of my functioning when I developed a neuro-immune condition 2016. When I was finally diagnosed, I was told there were no medical answers for my condition. I was often bed bound and in and out of wheelchairs.
Before this, I had been very active, and worked as a successful musician and performing artist alongside my teaching career. I lost so many of the simple, everyday things I had taken for granted: running, swimming, the dance classes I loved, moving around my flat and choosing when to brush my teeth and hair. Most of all, I lost the ability to sing for many years - the thing I most lived for. At times it felt like an indefinite prison sentence in my own body.
Having all of my ‘doing’ taken away from me began a journey into what the human mind, and spirit was truly capable of. I know what it is to live with pain that doen’t end, and has no easy answers. My fascination with unconscious processes and how to live well through adversity deepened. Eventually I regained the physical and mental capacity to start my Post Grad at Oxford.
It has taken nine years and a lot of work, the support of my family, friends and community, and I’ve developed the tools and resilience to build a beautiful, flourishing life around these losses. Even better, I have regained so much of my health and independence too. The Grief Recovery Method® has become a vital part of that process for me - I will keep living my own work.
I often get asked by clients, “don’t you find this work depressing?” If it sounds as if the Grief Recovery Method® involves a lot of heavy lifting, it certainly is action-orientated, and a successful outcome depends on what you are prepared to put into it as a client. But this is the most uplifting work I’ve ever had the privilege of sharing with people. And I can promise that whenever there is the right moment to bring joy and fun into our time together, I will. Healing is emotional as much as intellectual and above all, we will both be honouring the truth of your feelings.