Safe space for sharing and discovery
As facilitators, we come from a range of professional backgrounds and have counselling and groupwork skills. We all have personal experience of working with non-ordinary states of consciousness, including using psychedelics, and an interest in what these states can tell us about who we are and the nature of ‘reality’.
I am a retired senior social worker with a diploma in person-centred counselling and groupwork. I trained with Stan Grof as a Holotropic Breathwork facilitator, and am currently starting the second and final year of the Institute of Psychedelic Therapy, Deep Relational Process Training (psychedelic assisted therapy).
I help facilitate the Brighton Psychedelics integration group, and am involved in the Imperial College PSILOCD research trial as a volunteer guide.
Together with the Association of Palliative Care Social Workers, I work to develop trauma-informed working in hospice and palliative care.
Originally from Northern California, I earned my Master of Divinity and my Master of Social Work degrees from the University of Chicago, where I focused on Buddhist philosophy, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and end of life care.
My approach to chaplaincy and psychotherapy is grounded in an integrated mind-body perspective and I am passionate about supporting others to access their own inner wisdom.
I have experience working in a variety of healthcare and community-based settings.
As a clinical psychologist, my day-to-day work allows me the privilege of helping people to make sense of their experiences. I take a contextual and functional approach to this, drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectics and Compassion Focused Therapy. I am also very interested in relational understandings of different ‘parts’ of the self.
I have had a longstanding interest in the use of psychedelic and other drugs in all their contexts, therapeutic, spiritual/mystical, euphoric and other, and in harm reduction practices in all these domains. I have been fascinated to follow the renaissance of research into therapeutic use of psychedelics and empathogens to help people with many different mental health issues.
I am an integrative counsellor and groupwork facilitator currently in online private practice alongside co-running a specialist NHS counselling service for chronic physical illness.
I have worked across many settings including private healthcare, NHS, university wellbeing service, women’s prisons, and substance misuse services. I also have a background in holistic healthcare, bodywork and energy work. I am an Accredited member of BACP and a member of the IPT.
I have a personal and professional interest in the use of psychedelics for individual and collective wellbeing that started through my experiences of free partying and rave culture in the 1990s. I also work as a clinical trial therapist on psilocybin trials in the UK.
We do not claim to be ‘experts’ in the use of psychedelics. If you feel you need support beyond what the circle can offer, we will provide you with information about other sources of support. A list of national telephone helplines can be found here. A list of professional psychedelic integration therapists is provided by the Institute of Psychedelic Therapy, here.