My journey in healing and complementary therapy began in 2000 when I completed my accredited Touch For Health training in Kinesiology at Champigny-sur-Marne, France. Shortly afterwards I studied reflexology, having personally experienced its benefits, training with Josephine Gallagher at her New Beginnings School of Reflexology in County Tyrone, Ireland.

I went on to work at the Dzogchen Beara Buddhist Centre in West Cork, where I became acquainted with various forms of compassion-based practices from the Buddhist tradition from the various teachers who attended its retreats from across the world. I also attended the annual training retreats held by Miranda Macpherson, whose work in interfaith philosophy gave me a further insight into the way in which spirituality can affect ill health and our journey to recovery.

This lead me to Gabor Maté's Compassionate Inquiry. As individuals, we often carry with us beliefs and behaviours that impact and limit our mental and physical well-being in a negative way. Compassionate Inquiry enables us to reframe those beliefs and behaviours, to modify our approach to life, and to attain a greater sense of wellness. I completed my year-long training in February 2020, and while I have seen the enormous benefits Compassionate Inquiry has brought to my clients, I wanted to take my studies further, which brought me to the therapy I practice today: Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing.

Where Compassionate Inquiry is a largely cognitive approach, Somatic Experiencing is sense-based, dealing directly with the way in which our body responds to trauma. It offers not only an understanding of trauma, but a way of working with our body’s own defence mechanisms to physically release its negative effects.

I completed my training in Somatic Experiencing at Corrymeela, Ballycastle, in June 2025, though I feel it was, in many ways, the culmination of all the approaches I have studied, each of which have had a bearing on my work. I am grateful to those who have guided me on this journey and those who have allowed me to help them on their own path to wellness.