My Qualifications & Training

I have well over a decade of direct clinical practice. I currently work as a clinical psychologist for the NHS in a community mental health team.  In the United Kingdom, I have been employed as a psychological practitioner in both primary and secondary care services of the NHS, at charities such as MIND and those dedicated to women’s issues and experiences of violence.  I have worked closely with people from many backgrounds and across the life span from preschool children to elders.  I am currently pursuing extended clinical training in Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Schema Therapy.  I am also on the Register of Qualifications in Test Use (RQTU) with the British Psychological Society, and a member of the EMDR Association of the UK and the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network.

Before working in the United Kingdom, I completed my psychology undergraduate degree from UCLA and my postgraduate clinical degree from Columbia University.  I was awarded my licensure as a psychotherapist in the state of California after working with children and teenagers in hospitals, schools, for charities and in an addiction treatment facility as a clinical social worker.  An LCSW in California requires 3,000 hours of supervised experience in mental health, and 700 of these hours were providing individual, group and/or family therapy.  This training built the foundation of my view as mental health difficulties as also a consequence of multiple layers of challenge including discrimination and oppression.