A bit about me

I didn't set out to become a therapist. Most of my working life was spent doing something rather different: leading and developing organisations, running my own business and working as a freelance trainer and consultant.

I worked with people and organisations through complicated situations, often alongside public services, where there wasn't necessarily an obvious answer. There was a lot of listening, asking questions, making decisions, working things out and sometimes helping people see a situation differently.

Over time, I became increasingly curious about why people do what they do, how they make sense of things and why understanding something doesn't necessarily make it any easier to change.

That curiosity, and a desire to understand people better, eventually brought me to Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapy.

The route here

When I came across Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapy this is what made sense about it. It wasn't about fitting people neatly into categories or assuming that the same answer would work for everyone. It started with the individual: how they had come to think about something, what patterns had developed and what might help them change.

That way of thinking fitted with much of what I had already learned through my earlier work, but it also opened up a whole new way of understanding people and change that I wanted to explore properly.

I trained as a Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapist and have now been working in this field for over 20 years.

What that experience taught me

Working with people and organisations for so many years taught me to look beyond the first explanation. Sometimes what appears to be the problem isn't really the thing that needs attention, and sometimes a solution that looks obvious on paper makes very little difference in real life.

It also taught me the value of listening carefully, being curious about what isn't being said and not rushing to fill a gap with an answer.

Those things are just as useful in the therapy room.

People don't arrive as a problem to be solved. They arrive with a life, a history, relationships, responsibilities and their own ways of making sense of things. Understanding the bigger picture matters.

Why I still work this way

After more than 20 years, I still value the fact that Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapy gives me a clear therapeutic framework without asking me to treat everyone in the same way.

People can arrive with what sounds like the same problem and need something quite different. The approach gives me the freedom to work with that rather than trying to make the person fit the treatment.

That combination of a proper therapeutic framework and the freedom to think about the individual in front of me is still what I find most useful about Quest.

The professional bit

Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapist

Hypnotherapy Practitioner Diploma (HPD)

Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

Registered with the National Council for Hypnotherapy (NCH)

Member of the Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapy Practitioners Association (QCHPA)

Fully insured

Regular clinical supervision

Ongoing professional development and specialist training

If you'd like to talk

If you've got a sense that my approach might suit you, the easiest way to find out is to have a conversation.

You can tell me what's brought you here, ask any questions you have and get a feel for whether working together would be useful.

The people side was always the interesting bit.

It made sense to me

Don't rush to solve the wrong problem.

The label doesn't tell me everything I need to know about the person.

For those who like to check the details.