Anxiety and depression have been part of my life since childhood. It may sound a cliché, but having counselling in my early 20’s really did change my life and sparked my interest in working with other people suffering with similar difficulties. Over the years through therapy, I have learnt to work alongside my mental health & it now doesn’t consume my life. I have found having had this experience in my own life has enabled me to work with clients in a deeper, more profound way. I’ve not just studied mental health I’ve lived it so can offer clients an approach where I can fully ‘get it’.
Prior to working as a therapist, I worked as a musician. I studied music at college & then university graduating from Leeds University in 2002. After leaving uni I briefly worked in the music industry and quite quickly found this wasn’t for me. It felt important to me to do something positive with music, so alongside writing and performing, I began working as a community musician. I worked as a community musician for several years, working with children in care & adults with mental health issues.
It was here that my interest in helping people with mental health issues began. I often found that the time I spent talking to & listening to service users was more beneficial than the music we were doing, and I began to look into counselling as a career. During this time, I was also busy gigging with various bands & setting up and running an online record label. I played some amazing gigs that I’ll never forget and managed to get some of my music played on Annie Nightingale’s Radio 1 show but unfortunately it all had a detrimental impact on my own mental health. I decided to stop doing music as a job a number of years ago to focus on my career as a counsellor.
So that’s me really. Outside of mental health & music I am a very proud dad & husband and have two amazing kids. I still enjoy music and have managed to get my kids into ‘real’! music including Johnny Cash, James Brown & 80’s thrash metal! I still play the guitar but just for fun now. My main passion and self-care tends to revolve around motorbikes. I grew up watching bike racing and my summer is usually focused on bike race meetings. I try to do a few track days on my R6 every year. I’m also in the process of building a café racer style bike from and old Ducati ST2 donor bike, but due to work commitments and the little people in my life, this is slow progress!!