About me

Life and career

I’ve been an author, journalist and broadcaster in the UK and abroad. I’ve spent a number of years promoting sexual awareness through the arts and media.

Continuing Professional Development

I have completed a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of East London. The subject of my dissertation is Queer Menopause, and how therapists can support their queer menopausal clients.

I have regularly attended Pink Therapy’s ‘Advanced Clinical Discussions: Kink’ since 2013. In 2017-18 I attended a six-month long cycle of group supervision sessions focused on Out Of Control Sexual Behaviour, run by Dominic Davies and Doug Braun-Harvey.

In 2014 I started The London Gender, Sex and Relationship Diversity Practice. Six of us offer counselling, psychotherapy, mentoring and consultancy with a GSRD focus. We also offer training on a wide range of topics to media, charities and training organisations. We meet monthly for peer supervision.

To keep my practice up to date, I read books and journals and attend conferences and seminars. Here is a selection of CPD from the last two years:

Feminist Studies Association: Feminist Perspectives on Neurodiversity and Neuronormativity
Confer: Working with Toxic Shame
Pink Therapy November 2020: Four seminars on Non-Monogamy
BME Voices: Black Trauma in the Therapy Room
TASHRA training: The Psychobiology of Kink
Confer online conference module: Post-Slavery Syndrome
TASHRA training: Clinical Training Workshop: Kink-claiming the Trauma: From Sexual Assault to Sexual Empowerment
Pink Therapy – Kink on Pink – Living and Working in Kink Communities
Pink Therapy – Kink on Pink – Understanding Adult Baby And Diaper Lovers
CICS – Working with Domestic Violence and Abuse
Carolyn Spring – Working with Dissociative Disorders in Clinical Practice
Carolyn Spring – Dissociation and DID – The Fundamentals
Pink Therapy: Queer Desire
Confer: A Couple State of Mind: Insights into Couple Relating and Therapeutic Work with Couples
Confer: Queering Psychotherapy
Pink Therapy: Intersecting Identities
Confer: The Use of Psychedelics in Psychotherapy
Confer: Working with High Intensity States of Consciousness
BME Voices Talk Mental Health
Trans, Non-Binary and Intersex Conference 2018 at Brighton University
Raise Your Gays: Gender Variance & Sexuality Diversity in Islam
Family constellations workshop with Judith Hemming from the Centre for Systemic Constellations.
Pink Therapy ‘Sex Works!’ conference about sex work and psychotherapy. Here’s my review of the conference.

Training given/Events/Facilitation

When the Kinks Won’t Sync – Working with Mismatched Desires in Kink Relationships – part of Pink Therapy’s Kink on Pink season.
Queer Menopause – Where Gender, Sexuality and Age Collide (talk) at the Pink Therapy Queer Desire Conference.
‘Menopause, Sex and Hormones’ (talk) at Transitional States at Birkbeck in May 2018. (In 2018 I was on the advisory board of Pharmacosexuality: The Past, Present and Future of Sex on Drugs, a new research project funded by a Wellcome Trust Seed Award in Humanities and Social Sciences.)
I have trained other therapists about gender/sexual diversity in the therapy room.
‘The Sex Escalator’ (talk) at Hackney Attic.
I have solo facilitated, and held space for other teachers, at a number of experiential workshops.
I organised a section of Beyond The Rainbow, Pink Therapy’s 2015 conference for therapists of all genders and sexualities. (Keynote videos here.)
I have provided counselling services at festivals.

Previous employment

Honorary Psychotherapist, Bexley Psychotherapy Service, Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust (2012-14). Two years clinical placement at a highly respected NHS Trust.
Counsellor, The Centre for Better Health, Hackney (2012-13). A year providing counselling for established community organisation that is also a social enterprise and community hub.