Terri’s first professional training was in Dance Movement Therapy (now known as Dance Movement Psychotherapy) in the first training of its kind in the UK. After graduating, she worked privately, teaching, supervising clinical work and dissertations until 1991, when she joined an arts therapies department in a large psychiatric hospital. She has many years of experience of in-patient, day patient and outpatient settings, working with people with severe mental illness such as in eating disorders, postnatal breakdown, long-term mental illness, the deaf as well as forensic patients. Terri is very interested in the way trauma and emotions are stored in our bodies. She believes that there is huge psychotherapeutic potential in using movement and other creative endeavours.

At a professional development course, Terri was introduced to the idea of working with client together with their family in order to help people manage illness and distress. This was a very helpful new perspective for her, as illness often affects family members profoundly, not just the sufferer.

She decided to take the plunge and complete the post-graduate training of 3 years, after which she worked in a family therapy clinic with families where an adult member was suffering from mental distress. In the last 11 years, Terri has been working in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

Her experience in that time includes being part of a paediatric liaison team at a large London Hospital, where a large proportion of her caseload consisted of working with young people presenting to hospital with self-harm. Additionally, she worked in two Multi-Dimensional Treatment Foster Care teams. Here she gained valuable experience of working in multi-agency contexts which enriched her own practice. In the last 6 years, Terri has been working with primary school-aged children at risk of exclusion from mainstream education, and their families.

Terri has been supervising and consulting with professionals for many years. In all her work, her stance is to have a collaborative approach where people feel empowered and more effective in the roles they take on.

Terri is a member of the Association for Family Therapy (AFT) and is registered with the United Kingdom Council of Psychotherapy (UKCP).

  • Post-graduate Diploma in Family Therapy & Systemic Practice
    Prudence Skynner Clinic, 2002
  • Introductory Course in Group Analysis
    Institute of Group Analysis, 1995
  • M.A. In Dance Movement Therapy
    Laban Centre / Hahnemann University, 1987
  • B.Sc in Psychology and Computer Science
    Keele University, 1981