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.

LGBTQIA+ approaches to menopause

Over the last four years I have been doing research and activism about queer/trans approaches to menopause. The research I did as part of my Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of East London is published in a peer reviewed journal: Sexual and Relationship Therapy, part of Taylor & Francis: How can therapists and other healthcare practitioners best support and validate their queer menopausal clients?

Continuing Professional Development

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.

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 few years:

2023

Trauma in the Womb – How prenatal experience impacts adult clients (Confer)
Autistic Therapists and Counsellors (Autangel)
Adult ADHD in the Therapy Room (Free2bMe Therapy Services)
Working with Core Beliefs of ‘Never Good Enough’ (NICABM)
Weight Stigma and Fatphobia workshop (The Fat Counsellors)
Working with Adult Autistic Clients (Vanguard Neurodiversity Training)

2022

Introduction to Intersex (IHR Australia)
Body Dysmorphic Disorder (Brighton Therapy Partnership)
Eating Issues with Neurodivergent Clients (The Link Centre)
Understanding the Effects of Race and Culture in Psychosexual & Relationship Therapy (COSRT)
Working With Bariatric Clients (The Link Centre)
Autistic Experiences of Menopause (Scottish Women’s Autism Network)
Black Women, Trauma and Mental Health (Community Trauma Conference)
Queering Mental Health – Beyond Therapy (Pink Therapy conference)
Living & Working with Neurodivergence: Mental Health & Wellbeing (Online Events)
Double Gifted: Kinky and Neurodiverse (TASHRA)
Working While Autistic (Autangel)
Introduction to Systemic Practice (Brighton Therapy Partnership)
Scottish Autism Annual Conference
Trauma, Inflammation and Recovery (Confer)
Long Covid and Female Hormones (Dr Louise Newson)
Recognise and adjust for ND clients in the therapy room (Neuroclastic)
Neurodivergence, Sex and Sensory Processing (The Autistic OT)

2021

Monotropism – Does a single theory explain autism? (Autangel)
Strange Bedfellows – Connecting somatic practitices and therapy (TASHRA)
Autistic Mental Health (Tanya Adkin and David Gray-Hammond)
Working with Autism in Therapy (Brighton Therapy Partnership)
Transgender and Menopause (International Menopause Society)
Valerie Sinason – the truth about trauma and dissociation Part Two (Confer)
British Menopause Society 30th Annual Conference
The Relational Montage of Eating Disorders – Professor Jean Petrucelli (Confer)
The Polyvagal Guide to Relational Safety – Deb Dana (Confer)
Aromantic Competent Care
Valerie Sinason – The truth about trauma and dissociation Part One (Confer)
The Race Conversation (Confer)
Freedom to be Queer in UK – at what cost? (Pink Therapy)
How do therapists and clients manage their self-care in GSRD hostile environments? (Pink Therapy)
Feminist Perspectives on Neurodiversity and Neuronormativity (Feminist Studies Association)

2020

Working with Toxic Shame (Confer)
Four seminars on Non-Monogamy (Pink Therapy)
Black Trauma in the Therapy Room (BME Voices)
The Psychobiology of Kink (TASHRA)
Post-Slavery Syndrome (Confer)
Resting in grief and creatively processing shame (Radical Therapists Network)
Kink-claiming the Trauma: From Sexual Assault to Sexual Empowerment (TASHRA)
Living and Working in Kink Communities (Pink Therapy)
Understanding Adult Baby And Diaper Lovers (Pink Therapy)
Working with Domestic Violence and Abuse (CICS)
Working with Dissociative Disorders in Clinical Practice (Carolyn Spring)
Dissociation and DID – The Fundamentals (Carolyn Spring)
Queer Desire Conference (Pink Therapy)

Training given/Events/Facilitation

‘How do menopausal queers experience healthcare services?’ at the British Psychological Society’s POWES (Psychology of Women and Equalities Section) conference.
‘Menopause – Agent of Queerness?’ at AltSex NYC.
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 and 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.