About me
About me
Hello, I’m Shirley.
I’m a Dance Movement Psychotherapist and embodied psychotherapist, offering compassionate, collaborative therapy for adults. I work primarily online with people across the UK, from my practice in rural Cheshire.
I believe therapy begins with being genuinely heard and having enough space to become curious about your own experience. You don’t need to arrive knowing exactly what is wrong or what needs to change. We can begin with whatever has brought you here and explore it together.
My approach
My approach is warm, relational and grounded in the belief that you are the expert in your own life.
I don’t have ready-made answers or a formula for how you should live. I bring my professional knowledge and experience to our work while remaining curious about what is unique about you.
Together, we might explore experiences from the past and how they continue to affect you now, patterns in your relationships, or the ways you have learned to cope when life becomes difficult.
Sometimes therapy involves making sense of something that has been hard to put into words. Sometimes it is about noticing a familiar pattern and beginning to discover that you have more choice than it has felt like.
We work at a pace that feels manageable for you.
Working with the whole person
As a Dance Movement Psychotherapist, I have a particular interest in the relationship between our psychological and embodied experience.
We don’t experience our lives through our thoughts alone. Emotions, memories and relationships are also experienced through the body. Sometimes our bodies respond to something before we have found words for it.
You might notice tension, a change in your breathing, restlessness, numbness, a feeling of shrinking back, or simply a sense of being disconnected from yourself.
Paying attention to these experiences can offer another way of understanding what is happening.
This doesn’t mean that you need to dance, exercise or have any particular ability with movement. Movement in therapy can be very subtle. It may simply mean becoming curious about how you are sitting, breathing, moving or responding in a particular moment.
For me, this embodied perspective isn’t an additional technique added to psychotherapy. It is part of how I understand people and their experience.
Why this way of working matters to me
My interest in embodied psychotherapy has grown from a curiosity about the ways people experience and communicate things that can be difficult to put into words.
I’m interested in what happens when we give attention not only to what someone says, but also to what they notice, feel and experience in themselves.
I am also interested in the places where different therapeutic approaches overlap. Rather than seeing approaches as competing ways of understanding people, I find it valuable to consider what each can contribute and how they might deepen our understanding of embodied experience.
This curiosity continues to inform both my clinical work and my academic thinking.
My professional background
I trained as a Dance Movement Psychotherapist, completing a Master’s degree in Dance Movement Psychotherapy, and I am registered with the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK.
Alongside my private practice, I work in professional and academic settings, including teaching and supporting the development of therapists. I have worked as an Associate Tutor at university level and as part of the training and supervision team for Arts for the Blues.
I have also been involved in research exploring the use of arts and movement-based approaches in different settings.
These experiences continue to inform my practice, but I don’t believe that therapy should feel like a clinical exercise. What matters most is the relationship we develop and what is useful to you.
Continuing to learn
I’m naturally curious about how different approaches to psychotherapy understand the relationship between mind, body, emotion and experience.
My continuing professional development has therefore included work in embodied and somatic approaches, alongside clinical supervision and other areas of professional learning.
I’m interested not only in individual therapeutic approaches, but also in the places where they overlap and what this can tell us about how people change.
This is an area that continues to shape both my clinical practice and my academic thinking.
What you can expect from me
I will listen carefully to what you bring without assuming that I already know what it means.
I will be alongside you rather than directing you towards a predetermined outcome.
There may be times when we sit with something difficult, times when we become curious about something you hadn’t noticed before, and times when a different possibility begins to emerge.
My aim isn’t to change who you are.
It is to help create enough space for you to understand yourself more fully and discover what feels possible from where you are now.
Professional registration and qualifications
I hold a Master’s degree in Dance Movement Psychotherapy and am a registered member of the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK (ADMP UK), the professional body for Dance Movement Psychotherapists in the UK.
I am also a qualified Postural Stability Instructor and have undertaken further training in embodied and somatic approaches to therapy. Alongside my clinical practice, I continue to develop my knowledge through professional development, research, teaching and clinical supervision.
Working online
I offer most of my therapy sessions online, working with adults across the UK.
Online therapy can provide a private and comfortable space to work together without the need to travel. It also means that you can choose a therapist whose particular way of working feels right for you, regardless of where you live.
I have some availability for in-person work in rural Cheshire, subject to current availability.
If you’re considering therapy
You don’t need to be certain that therapy is right for you before getting in touch.
If you would like to explore whether my approach might be a good fit, you’re welcome to complete the enquiry form and tell me a little about what is bringing you to therapy. You can include any questions you have, and I’ll respond by email.