With a Master’s Degree in Special Educational Needs and a Diploma in Gestalt Counselling, I draw on both professional training and rich life experiences across various cultures. I grew up in a small village in North Germany, moved to London as an adult and later lived in Bahrain – throughout the volatile unknown of the Arab Spring. Now I am settled in the Meon Valley.

Never did I plan to live in so many different places or throughout such turbulent events. I never sought uncertainty or adventure. Unconsciously though I think, I wanted to leave behind the old unwritten rules that governed my early life. Some experiences I am grateful for. Others meant that I had to give up old certainties or that they were taken from me. Sometimes change meant doing the right thing but it did not mean that is was easy or that it did not hurt. Instead, it meant that at times I felt somewhat lost for a while until I adapted and became more resilient. I cannot say I always enjoyed the process.

Because of my experiences across time and cultures I am alert to our human need to feel understood, to have agency in our life, and to be treated with dignity. I have seen how much it can harm people and communities, sometimes for generations, when these needs are not met. I do not want that for anyone.

Finally, I can give space to those who need a place where they can just be. A place where they can find their voice, tell their stories, ask their questions. Where they are listened to and learn to listen to themselves. It is a place for discovery, practice and sometimes even play. Where in the process they learn without being taught and get to be at more ease with times of not-knowing.  It is place, to practice not to blame and shame but to hold tensions and so strengthen relationships, first with themselves, then with others.

Here symptoms are regarded as witnesses and messengers. Instead of remaining mute, misunderstood and pathologised, they are the beginning to the story of the real injury and dis-ease. Maybe not always, but often people recognise their own light, embrace their shadows and so escape the darkness that comes with abandoning themselves.

Whilst change is often unpredictable in its exact shape and time, it does happen. Sometimes in leaps but mostly imperceivably so. It can be difficult, painful but I think and feel always worthwhile.