I’m Tess, I am a qualified and registered Schema therapist. I am also a qualified, registered occupational therapist and yoga and mindfulness teacher. I have over 20 years’ experience working in NHS mental health services as a Clinical Specialist therapist working with adults of all ages diagnosed with complex mental health problems. I currently work in as a clinical specialist therapist in parental mental health in an NHS national and specialist CAMHS service, and in an NHS adult mental health psychological therapy service. For many years I also taught yoga and mindfulness for in an NHS recovery college to people with mental and physical health problems.
Early on in my NHS career whilst working as an occupational therapist I realised how my own experience of psychotherapy alongside my yoga and mindfulness practice had been integral and so important in my own healing and recovery. These resources and therapies were not always easily available and or particularly accessible for many people I worked with for a variety of different reasons.
This led me to train as a psychological therapist, and as a yoga and mindfulness teacher to help me better understand how challenging life experiences and events across the lifespan can adversely affect our identity, our physical and psychological sense of self and our confidence, creating a cycle of negative and often corrosive self-beliefs, too often resulting in mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.
I wanted to find a more effective, sustainable and accessible way to help my patients. I truly believe that therapy should and can be a force for good, helping us to feel more valued, resilient, hopeful and capable, and enable us to build healthier lives, connections and relationships with ourselves and the people and communities we love and care for.