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.
Qualifications
- MA Counselling and Psychotherapy, University of East London
- Level 7 Diploma in Integrative Counselling – Minster Centre, London
- Mental Health First Aid (Camden Council).
- BA, MA, English Literature – Magdalen College, Oxford
Memberships/Accreditations

- Advanced Accredited Gender, Sex and Relationship Therapist (Pink Therapy)
- Accredited Registrant Member of the NCS
- Member of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Union.
- I am insured with Oxygen Insurance.
Directories
- Listed in Counselling Directory.
- Listed in Pink Therapy Directory.
- Listed in Psychology Today.
- Listed in Poly Friendly Professionals.
- Listed in Kink Aware Professionals.
You can contact me here.
