Thank you for visiting my blog. Since you've just clicked on ABOUT, I take the liberty of assuming that a few personal details about its author may be in order.
The seemingly chaotic trajectory of a bee, landing on a flower and moving from one to another before retiring to a beehive for the night, resonates with my journey to becoming a Counselling Psychologist.
I received my undergraduate education in psychology at Vilnius University in Lithuania, where I was taught to believe in a rather linear computational model of the mind, focusing on problems originating solely within the individual. This approach, however, ignored the person’s environment, diversity, and complexities of human nature. While it did shed light on some aspects of our experiences, I realized its limitations when I began working in the prison service as a Forensic Psychologist. Despite feeling challenged, rewarded, and even enjoying aspects of my clinical practice, I eventually found myself at an early career crisis point. I had to acknowledge that I was not interested in working exclusively in this way.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I joined Arts Therapy training, where I rediscovered the need for freedom and creativity. I worked as a Creative Director, delivering psychology-arts projects and creative educational therapeutic workshops in the UK for almost five years. While it was an inspiring and highly rewarding job—and I considered myself very lucky to have it—there was still something missing.
Looking for inroads into my restless longing, I sat down and gave myself the space and the freedom to explore what was most meaningful to me. I found the therapeutic process itself, and the many different possibilities it offered to care for others, intellectually and emotionally empowering.
I was awarded a scholarship, and years later, I received my Counselling Psychology doctorate (PsychD) from the University of Roehampton in London. During my time there, I had the great honor of meeting, being inspired by, and learning from amazing individuals such as Prof Mick Cooper, Dr Anastasios Gaitanidis, Dr Paola Valerio, Dr Edith Steffen, Dr Joel Vos, and many others. My doctoral thesis explored various ways in which people relate to personal mortality.
I am registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and the British Psychological Society (BPS). Additionally, I am an accredited Mentalization-Based Therapy Practitioner (Anna Freud National Centre). With over 7 years of experience in NHS primary and secondary care, as well as community counseling services, I have worked with patients facing a range of mental health issues. Currently, alongside my private practice offering individual counseling and psychological therapy, I work as a Counselling Psychologist in secondary care for the NHS.