As well as being a professional Wild Swimming Walks Guide, I am an Outdoor and Adventure Therapist.
*Please note that is a fee paying service (£65 for 1 hour), or from £150 for a private half or full day experience
If you feel able to, please let me know when booking a one-to-one experience, if you’d like the focus to be on any (can be more than one) of the following areas.
During our sessions I’ll use outdoor and adventure therapy to gently help you manage the impact of particular types of trauma. If you would like this sort of help to manage Post-Traumatic Stress caused by other experiences, or with managing anxiety, depression, and conditions such as OCD, please get in touch and we can have a chat – by email or WhatsApp if you prefer. Our interactions are of course confidential. Please note that these sessions are not suitable if you require mental health crisis intervention, and are not a substitute for clinical psychotherapy.
I also offer 1 hour outdoor and adventure therapy sessions which needn’t involve wild swimming, if that would be a bit much for you. These will be designed to fit within your comfort zone, so if you want a walk in the park, or a stroll along the beach, or to sit on a bench that has a nice view, or on the sand watching the flames from my little portable wood burner, then that’s what we do. The route will be accessible if you use a wheelchair or other mobility aid/s. Please note that if you want a session held more than an hour’s drive away from my home in south east Northumberland, I will have to charge accordingly.
If you would like an online therapy session, where the focus is on devising ways of bringing the outdoors and wilding into your life more, to help with whatever challenges you’re facing, please reach out. Sessions are conducted using Zoom and can be either 30 minutes (£40) or 1 hour (£65).
My Therapy Terms and Conditions can be found here.
1. Wild grief walks and swims
For those who like me, have experienced out of order bereavement (your person was below the age of 51) and/or traumatic bereavement caused by suicide, violence or natural disaster. It doesn’t matter how long ago your person died. Even if decades have passed, if you’d like to ‘walk and talk’ about grieving them, I’m here for you.
2. Wild hope walks and swims
For anyone who has experienced sexual and/or domestic violence or abuse, whether as an adult or child. I am a qualified ISVA (Independent Sexual Violence Adviser), with an MA (Distinction) in Women and Child Abuse from London Metropolitan University, and a certificate on working with survivors of childhood abuse from City Lit College. I am also a victim/survivor of long term childhood abuse in all its forms.
I was due to start a PhD researching violence against women engaging in outdoor leisure activities, in October 2018, but everything changed when my husband Rich died that July. The research might happen in the future, but in the meantime if you’d like to walk, talk and swim with someone who ‘knows’, please get in touch.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve never told anyone else. It doesn’t matter if you never reported it. This is not counselling as such, and no notes will be taken by me during the session, should that be a concern. Similarly, I will never ask you to share any details about what happened to you. This is about me listening, and helping you find ways to manage the impact of your experiences.
3. Wild (but sometimes wobbly!)
For those of us living with disabilities, invisible or otherwise, and chronic health conditions, that sometimes mean we’re a wee bit wobbly! My late husband Rich had Nf2 – Neurofibromatosis type 2, and the direct impact of this, as well as numerous surgeries over the years (including several lots of brain surgery), meant that wobbly levels were sometimes high.
I have Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and whilst physically I work hard at trying to minimise wobbly levels, I do need to use walking poles. I also have to take my time coming downhill to make sure that my feet are placed properly, as dislocations hurt! So if you too have to live with what I refer to as quirks, whatever they might be, and would like to make the focus of the session talking about how it is to live with and manage said quirks, then I’m your gal.
