Rich Goodson

Therapist Directory Listing Category: Online Therapy

About the Therapist

About the therapist:

I am a queer, cis-male, mixed-class, committed Buddhist. I have a daily Zen practice which centres my life and I'm a trainee dharma teacher with the Kwan Um School of Zen. I live happily with my husband and dog in Derbyshire. I still work as a teacher, teaching refugee teenagers at a college. I'm also a poet, writer and artist and have a PhD in Creative Writing.

My personal experience of internalised homophobic shame and the constrictions of masculinity and sexual identity have all made me acutely aware of the need for a more specialised and nuanced therapy for the LGBT+ Community.

Sexual identity:

Gay
Queer

Gender identity: Male

Gender history: As assigned at birth

Non-monogamy: No

Intersex: No

Neurodivergent: No

Personal pronouns: he/him/they/them

Qualifications - Links to websites:

Diploma in Counselling - Tariki Counselling and Psychotherapy Training (www.tarikitrust.org)

Qualifications - Additional:

Award	Awarding body	Year of award
Degree in English Language and Literature	St. Edmund Hall, University of Oxford	1991
PGCE (Secondary School English)	University of Sheffield	1996
PhD in Creative Writing	Nottingham Trent University	2011

Experience and approach:

I was trained by Caroline Brazier on the Tariki Counselling and Psychotherapy Training Programme in Leicester and did my placement at Nottingham Counselling Service.

My practice as a therapist is grounded in my own Zen practice and is informed by my past experience of religious rejection and also by my work with people from many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, some with very traumatic pasts. I am very sensitive to how our cultures make us who we are. I want to help my clients explore and celebrate their identities, however marginalised by mainstream society, and explore for themselves which of their influences have been healthy and which might have been otherwise.

I believe everyone has the ability - and the right - to find their own path in life, however 'different', surprising and complex that path might turn out to be.

My practice is online (Zoom).

Approaches: