Wherever you are, whoever your people, whatever your story,
and the story that the land unfolds,
Welcome to these pages

 

"You have to know what's under your feet
So you can make things strong enough
To take the weight -
The weight of all the people
Who haven't been born"
Envy of Angels - Don McGlashin

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Here you'll find out about the range of work that I offer, how I think about it - and I hope that it will touch your heart as much as it touches mine. Please have a good look round, using the links above, and get a sense of how inner and outer ways of knowing mix together through the stories of our lives. Its a rich river to swim in. 

I'm so glad you came. Here's a little background about me - or maybe you want to get a sense through the pages and come back. I'll be here by the river!

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I have previously worked in communications and conservation, which led me to psychotherapy and ecopsychology. I trained with the Psychosynthesis Institute in New Zealand, and have been in private practice since 1998. As well as offering in-person therapy as part of the Madrona Integrative Health Clinic on Salt Spring Island, BC, I work online with the Mindwise service of Triune Osteopaths in Auckland, and, privately, with people around the world.

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For 25 years I've had a broad-based general practice for adults. It's a remarkable privilege to work closely with people bravely considering who they are and where their lives may be asking them to grow, learn or change.  Whilst often exciting and inspiring, this can be challenging for people to make sense of on their own - especially where it leads into the tougher parts of living. As well as the issues of purpose and meaning which can gnaw at our day-today lives, I've helped people make sense of thoughts of suicide, or the pain of coming to terms with their own or others' dying. Or the dying and changing of relationships. Getting older is "just another of life's transitions", yet, like all the others, it can be hard to square whats going on in our bodies with our thoughts and feelings.

 

And, behind all these familiar human processes, there's the less spoken impacts of these times of great division and the apparent "unravelling" of climate and social systems we believed we could rely upon and trust. It's not surprising we may want to turn it all off - which can bring problems of its own. But psyche is not "out to get us". In fact, it's quite the opposite. It's a wonderful thing to work with people discovering their own resources and recovering their sense of themselves, restoring their sense of purpose, and reconnecting with their sense of aliveness.

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I was invited to become a teaching faculty member of the Institute where I trained. During my many years there I pursued  studies in Social Ecology and Ecopsychology, both very natural complements to Psychosynthesis.  You can explore this aspect of my work through the links above, or even watch a short film interview that my friend Kim and I made very spontaneously, and which - despite my unpreparedness - has turned out to be a useful, if rather excited way of showing some of my work! It's effectiveness speaks a lot to Kim's skills!!

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I have lived and worked in several countries, delight in music and words, and value the profound connection of engaging with more unspoiled places. I value people, laughter, thinking together and recognising the simple and essential aspects of life. I now live with my partner on Salt Spring Island, unceded Salish Territory in British Columbia.  I'm so fortunate to live close to a forest park where I can slow down to tree-time, or look out of my study to see eagles and vulures hanging on the nearby thermals, and, far away, the mountains on the mainland.

 

I am a professional member of: 
Psychosynthesis Aotearoa/nz & Australia (PAnzA)   *   Association for the Advancement of Psychosynthesis (AAP) 
Canadian Counselling & Psychotherapy Association (CCPA)   *  Climate Psychology Alliance - Nth America (CPA-NA)