Meet the writer: A bit about me

How did I end up in this weird career of psychology?

Hello dear readers,

As I celebrate the milestone of reaching 1000 subscribers here at The Therapy Room, I want to send out the biggest thank you to everyone who has supported this newsletter over the last year and a half - it means so much.

To mark this moment, I thought it was time to introduce myself more fully for those who don’t know me, and tell the story of how I came to find myself in this peculiar field of writing about and practicing psychology and trauma therapy.

Left: Around 5 years old, in a dance show (that's me in the centre) Right: At 50 years old, same curls, same love of movement

I always dreamed of becoming a writer. As a teenager, my career plan was to become a music journalist. Mainly so I could stalk the band crushes adorning my bedroom wall in our suburban home in Wolverhampton. I was a dreamy child, and spent a lot of time inhabiting a fantasy world where I would live in London and hang around the haunts of the beautiful and famous. My journal was the place where I would map out these future dreams and make lists of how to get there.

As an introverted kid, I had a deep desire to understand people and the world. Somewhere in my teens, my grandad bought me a book on the life stories and personality profiles of serial killers. Perhaps not the most obvious choice of gift to bond with your young granddaughter, but he had a habit of buying us books on random topics that happened to be on special offer in WHSmith. The serial killers’ stories had me instantly riveted and sent me down a reading rabbit hole, wanting to better understand the darker sides of human nature.

So began my earliest interest in psychology.

For a time, I set my sights on working in prisons with psychopaths and serial killers. Only later, after applying and failing to get into the training programme for prison psychologists in the UK, did I realise that perhaps this was too harsh and brutal an environment in which to spend 40-odd hours a week.

The next best choice was Clinical Psychology, where I could train to understand and work with the full spectrum of mental health issues. My desire to understand the darker sides of life led me to take positions in inpatient psychiatric facilities where I worked with patients carrying diagnoses like psychosis, schizophrenia, and personality disorders. It was a lot more fun than it sounds, and I quickly learned the value of seeing past labels to the unique human being in front of my eyes.

Every person I met had incredible qualities and gifts to offer the world. And everyone carried a story that could break your heart.

More than two decades later, my fascination with human psychology has only deepened. If you spend enough time in the mental health field, you eventually start to recognise that trauma sits at the heart of almost everything that you witness, regardless of the label that an individual may wear. Sometimes that’s the big-T Traumas of abuse and neglect, and many times it’s the small-t traumas of attachment wounds and dysregulated relationships.

Trauma has become a subject close to my heart, both in seeking to understand the people I work alongside, and in seeking to understand myself. I was born to parents who were both conceived in the immediate aftermath of World War II. My dad came into the world almost nine months to the day after the war ended. I don’t know the full story, but I imagine his father was fresh off the boat from the horrors of the frontlines of Europe. My mother, born another nine months later, to parents who had survived the bombings of the Blitz, witnessing friends and neighbours lose homes and lives all around them.

I’m fascinated by how these traumas live on and infiltrate subsequent generations of offspring, who don’t know the full story, but know something of the lived experience of it, in our overreactive nervous systems and our seemingly irrational existential fears.

My nan (on the left) in her army uniform

At five years old, I started dance classes (ballet, tap, and contemporary dance back then), and had a taste of the freedom that can be found in living fully in the body. Dance and movement practices have been a life-long love affair.

In my 30s the practice of yoga wove its way into my life and introduced me to my body in a more subtle and nuanced way. I quickly went from casual student to yoga teacher-in-training, as I was compelled to learn more about the power of this mysterious practice to move stagnant energy, shift emotional states, awaken vitality, and regulate my rough edges. It offered a much-needed path to connection and integration of mind, body, spirit, and breath.

My yoga journey coincided with a period of ill health and a diagnosis of autoimmune disease. I am blessed (or perhaps cursed) with a mind that won’t rest until it can fully understand something, so I was unable to accept the doctor’s prognosis of ‘we don’t know what causes it, there is no cure, and it will likely get worse as you get older’.

My quest for answers and healing took me on a 15-year+ journey, through deep dives into diet, herbs, and bodywork, and eventually to trauma healing, nervous system regulation, and somatic therapies.

The personal became inextricably woven with the professional and these are now some of my deepest passions.

I connected with another source of healing when I became an accidental immigrant to Aotearoa New Zealand in my early 30s. A confirmed city girl up to that point, I did not know how much I needed the grounding and expansiveness of nature as a vehicle to connect me to the wider lens of spirit and my underlying essential nature.

All of these strands have combined into my work and offerings today, and here we are, in this little corner of the internet, where I share a few of the things I’ve learned on the way, along with the questions and discoveries I continue to grapple with as a human walking this complicated path called life.

I’m blown away that the words I type on my laptop here in Auckland are now reaching readers in 43 different countries, and deeply grateful to each of you for being here and inviting me to take up space in your inbox 🙏

Looking out over Piha beach, West Auckland

Now over to you. I’d love to hear more about who you are and where you’re reading from. Please take a moment to say hello in the comments, and if you write here on Substack, feel free to drop in a link to your newsletter. Do stick around and say hello to others in the comments while you’re here. I know there are some incredibly talented and interesting folks among you all.

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