Leo Turner

Having worked as a counsellor for twenty years in various settings, private and institutional, I am now semi-retired. I still work part-time at the Employee Assistance Program at the Royal United Hospital, Bath, where I have been for eleven years.

My initial training was at the Centre for Psychological Astrology in London.  I then took a diploma in counselling at UWE Bristol. My approach to counselling was through this integrative training, later tempered by working in drug and alcohol rehabilitation for seven years. I am currently working,  mostly short term,  with a variety of staff members at the hospital and other local organisations.

The Jungian perspectives of my early astrological work – including archetypal patterns and a psychological reading of alchemy – have since been influenced by my understanding of Buddhist perspectives and practices.  Essentially I offer a perspective on the suffering of the troubled soul, and a place of safety, close attention and support.

I struggle with prescriptive and over formalised methodologies in therapy. I was formerly a member of BACP but left feeling dissatisfied with their high bureaucracy and lack of personal contact. I have been in Western Valleys IPN group since its origin in 1997 and am highly satisfied with its approach – despite some shortcomings – and its ongoing face to face accreditation process and mutual support. My supervisor for the last eleven years has been Elspeth Schwenk.

Leo Turner   December 2016 l.turner@phonecoop.coop

Arthur Musgrave

Much of my work these days is as a supervisor. Since my initial training in the early 1980s I have learnt a great deal from the different traditions of counselling and psychotherapy, but the way of thinking about our work that I like best comes from Jerome and Julia Frank in the third edition of their book ‘Persuasion and Healing’. Therapy, they write, “is a form of rhetoric that relies on the methods of hermeneutics (or meaning-making)”. An immense amount of research data backing this approach is summarised in Bruce Wampold and Zac Imel’s ‘The Great Psychotherapy Debate’ (2015).

Fundamentally what excites me about my work is not so much to do with fixing other people’s problems as exploring collaboratively ways my clients (and my supervisees’ clients) can live more satisfying lives. I fear that as a profession we may have taken a wrong turning in an “evidence-based” era of cost cutting. Audit culture increasingly predominates while critical reflection is sidelined. Fewer trainees nowadays have the opportunity to learn about good practice before having to focus on treatment and the “one size fits all” prescriptions of time‑limited therapy.

Arthur Musgrave
June 2016

Dawn Blooomfield

I am a Reiki Practitioner and have been involved in complementary therapies for over 20 years.My background is in integrative counselling, where I used various creative skills as therapeutic tools during counselling sessions.

I became interested in other complementary therapies during CPD training.One of these was Reiki.

From the perspective of a Reiki Practitioner, a counselling background is an asset in providing a safe space for feelings and emotions to come forward during a Reiki treatment.  It is, however, important to refer on should professional counselling be needed.

Reiki is a system of natural healing developed in 1922 by Japanese Buddhist, Mikao Usui.  Its premise is that ‘life force energy’ flows through all of us. If this energy becomes unbalanced, low or stuck, it is believed we are more likely to become stressed and unwell.

Reiki is a form of therapy that uses “hands on”, no touch techniques, with the goal of improving the flow of life energy.  Reiki treatments are very relaxing. After experiencing Reiki treatment myself, I decided to retrain as a Usui Reiki Practitioner.

Having left the NHS, I now have more time available to give Reiki treatments.   I offer Reiki for stress related issues and to promote healing.   I also offer Reiki for distant healing work.

Dawn Bloomfield,
January 2017

Barbara Hacking

I completed a post graduate diploma in psychological counselling in 1994. Since then I have completed training in post-adoption work and I also became a qualified supervisor in 2001.

While I worked in primary care alongside GPs for many years both in Wales and in North Somerset, I now work only in my own private practice with clients and supervisees.

An accredited member of BACP, I chose to leave that body some years ago.  My professional body has been the Independent Practitioners Network since 2003.

I work integratively, from a person-centred base and am very wary of solution-focused therapy.  Experience tells me that people have the answers to their own difficulties.  My job is to help them find meaning in their life and hence discover what choices they can make.

My contact details are:

barbara.hacking@talktalk.net

01934 835736

Ruth Pooley

I have been in practice for 20 years, although I didn’t want to be a psychotherapist! I attended the course for my own development.  However the training at Karuna Institute in Core Process Psychotherapy was so excellent and allowed me to develop as a person quite profoundly and I realised that I did want to pass on this opportunity to resettle into a more authentic wholesome relationship with oneself and with the world.

I now work for a charity that supports survivors that have experienced rape or sexual abuse. I offer psychotherapy, supervision and run a group for women survivors of child sexual abuse. People often ask me if this is challenging and of course it is, I value the work and it requires that I go deeper and reach further and I have come to love the work and each person’sjourney and every small step towards recovery.

In my private practice I work with all genders, as well as offer supervision.

I am fluent in British Sign language, and work therapeutically with people who are Deaf or have hearing loss and family members dealing with the impact of hearing loss.

For me working therapeutically is a spiritual practice. The people who come need not know this, but my approach is one that holds awareness of the spiritual interaction as well as one of mind, body and heart.

Nigel Felton

My fascination with personal development and possibilities for change and growth has been an intrinsic part of my personality since childhood, though back then this is not the language that I would have understood. I struggled in a secondary school system that didn’t seem to recognise  me and in which I had no investment except through anxiety, resentment and rebellion.

Having explored anxiety, resentment and rebellion pretty thoroughly by my late 20s I was drawn to humanistic therapeutic group work as a means of understanding myself better and relating more truthfully. This led me to recognise a possible talent for working with people therapeutically so I set about exploring this through two intensive trainings in the early 1980s in humanistic and then Gestalt traditions. I began practicing as a Gestalt therapist in 1987 and have been developing my own particular style since then in the direction of a relational and transparent Gestalt approach to counselling and psychotherapy.

I am a founder member of the Western Valleys group and value the support and challenge that the group offers me very highly. It is an essential part of my professional and personal life.

I live in Frome Somerset, and am married with an adult son.

Elizabeth Cooke

I qualified as a Chartered Counselling Psychologist and Psychotherapist at Metanoia in 2005, but have had a prior background as a Christian Counsellor, Social Worker and Probation Officer.  All of these, my own personal therapy and my own ongoing passion to facilitate people finding their own healing through the therapeutic space and relationship constantly underpins my approach as a therapist.  Every person is a unique individual and so I find an integrative person-centred approach the most helpful model to help me in my work.

Since my training I have worked in a private hospital, in private practice, and since 2011 I have worked in the National Health Service (NHS) in various Community Mental Health Teams (CMHT) and Hospitals – both acute and long term.  I currently work part time in the NHS as part of a psychological service, where I work in both a rehabilitation hospital and the community.

I greatly value the Independent Practitioner Network (IPN) which I have belonged to over the past 5 years as in my experience they hold the greatest integrity to themselves, their clients, and provide the best practice in peer supervision.