Person-Centred Online Counselling for LGBTQIA+ and/or Neurodivergent People

My journey to becoming a counsellor began in 2018 . I gained an MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice from the University of Nottingham in 2023 and a BSc in Psychology from the Open University in 2017.

Prior to becoming a therapist, I was a support worker with neurodivergent adults for a year and before that a support worker in women’s aid domestic violence services for a decade. Experiencing the profound impact on people’s lives of being heard, believed, and valued without judgment in these support worker roles led to me embarking on the journey to become a person-centred psychotherapist.

In my experiences as a psychotherapy client, prior to and during therapy training, I repeatedly found my time taken up withholding parts of myself or with educating the therapist on the contexts of my existence as a queer and neurodivergent person. Changing to a queer and neurodiversity affirmative therapist, was a revolutionary experience for me. For the first time, I could be open about my relationships, dynamics, and spaces I occupy in the world without fear of the therapist judging me or seeing my gender, sexuality, or relationship diversities as problems to be solved.

Bringing my whole self to therapy lifted such a weight from me, no longer did I need to use my time and energy within personal therapy to withhold or talk around aspects of myself, instead that energy and space was freed up for me to explore what I actually wanted to bring to therapy. It was like I could fully breath in a therapy space for the first time.

Wanting to offer this kind of affirmative experience to my future clients informed the direction of my studies, dissertation, continuous professional development, and client work.