Teaching Staff

Sue Hext

Adv Dip Couns, Adv Dip TA

Sue Hext has worked professionally for over 25 years with children and adolescents, and finally admitted that she has an abiding passion for the work and cannot stop educating, counselling and generally banging on about the needs of this group!

As a young, green teacher, Sue discovered an interest in and empathy for young people who experience emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) in many areas of their lives.

She worked as a specialist EBD teacher in mainstream schools, residential schools for children with epilepsy, for victims of severe abuse and subsequently severely challenging behavioural and a psychiatric unit for adolescents.

Sue studied for an MEd. at Exeter University (SEN/EBD) and went on to enrol at the Iron Mill where she has qualified as a counsellor and completed her TA Psychotherapy training.

She is now based at Bristol where she has a private psychotherapy practice, and is employed as a school counsellor and part time college/university lecturer. Sue also has an interest in eating patterns/body image and in the past has opened a weight management and fitness club for women.

Sara Drew

BA Hons, MA Cert Couns, Adv Dip Couns

Sara is a counsellor with Young Devon, a countrywide youth agency. She is a tutor on the Advanced Diploma in Integrative Counselling and previously trained at the Iron Mill. She has worked with young people in a variety of settings, including personal development courses for the Prince's Trust and other voluntary sector projects in the South West of England.

Sara works from a Humanistic, Integrative framework and has a strong interest in the transpersonal. She has delivered Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to offenders in custody and is qualified in teaching adults.

Sara has worked in broadcast journalism as a reporter, editor and producer. She also held management posts and has experience of managing large teams through the process of change.

Sara enjoys exploring and deepening into her belief that it is the relationship between client and counsellor that affects transformation rather than the nature of the counselling modality or interventions offered.

Jan Cavill

BACP Accred Adv. Dip. Couns. (UKRCP Reg.), Dip. Couns. Child & Adol., Dip. Supervision (EAS Accred).

Jan Cavill has worked for many years in an independent school and now teaches at both certificate and advanced diploma level, and is an enthusiastic researcher. As an experienced therapist Jan continues to advance her studies to include psychotherapy and supervision, all of which keeps her very busy. Outside the clinical environment she loves to walk her dogs through the countryside around the Taunton area, and further afield when time allows. Jan also hopes in the near future to return to her favourite pastime of drawing.

Jenifer Elton-Wilson

DProf (Middlesex)I, Chartered Counselling Psychologist, UKCP Registered Psychotherapist and BACP Accredited Supervisor.

Dr. Jenifer Elton Wilson has published and presented these ideas in a number of contexts, including National Health Trusts, Primary Care Settings, BPS and BACP conferences (invited), Employment Advisory Programmes, Counselling Services and Masters Level Training courses in Psychotherapy and Counselling.   In 1996, Jenifer published “Time-conscious Psychological Therapy: A Life Stage to Go Through” London: Routledge.   Since then she has extended and advanced the approach offered in this book in chapters included in several edited publications. More recently, she has  co-authored with Gabrielle Syme, “Outcomes and Objectives: Questioning the Practice of Therapy”, the final volume of the Open University Core Concepts Series (ed .Michael Jacobs)    Her workshops offer current theory and practice in the field of effective, eintegrative and  time-conscious practice.

As well as a long-standing private practice, Jenifer has worked in psychiatric settings, has established and developed a large University counselling service and has tutored courses in integrative psychotherapy and counselling psychology. Until 2002, Jenifer was engaged in developing and leading a professional post-qualification Doctorate for innovative practice in psychotherapy.

Jenifer is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist and a BACP accredited Senior Practitioner and Supervisor.

Katrina Laydon-Walters

Dr. Katrina Laydon-Walters is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist (British Psychological Society), Associate Fellow of the BPS, Chartered Scientist, Registered European Psychologist and Family Therapist member of the Association of Family Therapy. 

Dr. Laydon-Walters has over 15 years clinical experience of working with adults and children experiencing psychological difficulties and distress arising from complex problems, and/or every-day issues, Dr Laydon-Walters practice includes cognitive behavioural therapy and systemic family therapy. Her aim is simple: to enable clients to alleviate their symptoms, maximise their potential and create a more positive future.

In addition to her busy clinical practice, Dr. Laydon-Walters undertakes Expert Witness assessments and Medico Legal Reports relating to psychological injury; trains practitioners in mental health and allied professions nationally; provides clinical consultation and supervision, and offers psychological consultation to those in senior positions in their profession (private, public and corporate) who may wish to seek an external source of support.

Rose Bedford

BA(Hons)Psych, MBACP (Accred), PG Cert. Supervision, UKRCP reg., Adv. Dip. Int. Couns.

Rose has been involved professionally with equality and diversity related work for over 20 years, starting with child protection, moving into the field of disability, then onto social care management and higher education access programmes. Her career as a counsellor began in the late 1980’s with family therapy and family systems training, and she’s been hooked ever since, training as an integrative counsellor here at the IMI.

Rose has a private practice in Exeter, offering creative integrative counselling and supervision from an existential perspective. Having also gained substantial experience in board member coaching, staff training and group development, she is skilled in facilitating sensitive exploration and change.

Rose is a warm and down-to-earth person who enjoys play, nature and the outdoors and has a great belief in the power of creativity, which shapes the way she lives and works. 

Rachel Southern

MBACP (Accred), UKRCP (EAS Accred.), Cert Ed,  Adv. Dip. Int. Couns, Post Grad Dip Couns Child & Ado, Cert in Coaching and Mentoring, Dip Supervision

Briony Nicholls

Briony Nicholls is a TA psychotherapist and supervisor, working in private practice in Oxford. Before training in TA, Briony did research into neuroscience and psychopharmacology, then worked as a medical writer. She brings to her practice an interest in the brain and research, and the ways that pharmaceuticals affect us. Briony has a long-term interest in training in various fields, and a commitment to producing collaborative and creative learning environments that respect the experiences and learning needs of students

Briony has also had a life-long interest in sports and in coaching sports. This developed into a specialist interest in working with sports people to improve their performance by psychological and mental preparation. In the past, she worked with many women’s sports teams in Oxford University. She also worked with Sarah Outen before and during her solo row across the Indian Ocean, which made Sarah the first (and so far only) woman, and youngest person, to make that crossing solo. Briony continues to work with Sarah, as she is now circumnavigating the globe under her own power.

External Staff

Johan Pfeiffer

Johan Pfeiffer was born in Czechoslovakia, as it was named then. He had the “privilege” to experience  and “study” totalitarian systems in day to day life for more than 30 years. Johan is a medical doctor, specialised as a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and supervisor. He started his professional carrier in the mental health field about 26 years ago.

At the very beginning of his involvement in the mental health field he felt care or help based work, which was dominated by a worldwide institutional-paternalistic principle at that time, was not a way for human beings to be treated. He recognised early that democratic, community based systems had to replace the “classical “ institutional-totalitarian model of care. Throughout his career he has worked  as a clinical practitioner-psychiatrist as well as care-system reformer. He was involved in institutional care system reforms in several countries especially in Central and Eastern Europe and also in Mid Asia. For his effort in this field, especially for campaigning against middle age practices as putting children to cage beds, he was in 2004 awarded as  European Hero by Time magazine.

He is  working now for an international charity named Children High Level Group (CHLG), the Founder and chairperson of which is JK Rowling.   The charity is registered in UK , having headquarters in London. He is busy, especially in EU Commission and EU parliament as well as in concrete EU member states and pre-accession countries with supporting the process of reform of institutional care / health–social / in general, but in institutional care of children especially. 

Johan  through his many varied places , situation and cultures of working, has gained vast experience in supervising and “coaching” on all levels in a helping-profession field. He has also been involved for a long time in teaching psychotherapy and supervision.

Phil Lapworth

MSc. Integrative Psychotherapy (Middlesex), Dip. Systemic Integrative Psychotherapy (Metanoia Institute), Dip. Counselling (S.W. London College), Clinical Transactional Analyst (ITAA).  Senior Accredited Member of the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy and a Registered Psychotherapist with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy.

Iron Mill Counselling Course Staff Supervisor and Consultant.

Phil started out as a teacher in Special Education in London before training as a counsellor and psychotherapist. He has been in private practice for over 25 years and works in an idyllic location near Bath providing psychotherapy, supervision and consultancy.

He has written several papers and chapters on therapy and, with Charlotte Sills and the late Sue Fish, has published three books on different psychotherapeutic approaches. Charlotte and he are just completing work on a 2nd Edition of their book ‘Integration in Counselling and Psychotherapy – Developing a Personal Approach’ which will be out in December this year. they hope subsequently to update and develop their TA book and then their Gestalt book. As might be apparent, Phil enjoys writing and was very pleased to get a short story published recently (not surprisingly, about psychotherapy) which has inspired him to write more fiction.

There are further staff profiles to be added to this page and will be made available in due course.