Tutors on Psychotherapy, Supervision, Coaching and Advanced Counselling Training

Julie is the Director of the Iron Mill Institute, which runs both National and European accredited courses in Psychotherapy, Counselling, Supervision, Coaching and Management. This reflects the range of her application of psychological and other areas of expertise, including conflict resolution, mediation, consultancy and inspired teaching.

She teaches all over Europe and the UK training people as diverse as Government Ministers and other politicians, to the Procurator Fiscal’s Office, Doctors, Mentors, Managers, Psychologists, Teachers and Social Workers, to name but a few.

An internationally qualified and recognised Transactional Analyst, Trainer and Supervisor, she is also a UKCP Clinician and BACP registered Supervisor. She is also a trained Mediator Coach and Coaching Trainer, currently Vice President of the European Association of Supervision and Coaching.

She has a very good sense of humour, has a joyous personality and is a person of immense integrity.

Tutors on Psychotherapy training

Mellie Lewin is a teaching and supervising Transactional Analyst who runs a psychotherapy, supervision and training practice in South East England. Over the last few years she has been actively involved in the development of training and assessment standards within Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy and is currently an EATA Supervising Examiner and Chair of the UK Trainers Section. She came to Transactional Analysis via academia (English Literature and Women’s Studies) and the Probation Service. As a result, her interests include narrative approaches to psychotherapy, social constructionism and the development of anti-oppressive ways of working in the helping professions.

Tutors on the Psychotherapy training

There is that passionate spark in all of us that has never ceased to ask: “What is it to be human?” It's not an intellectual question – it's both visceral and compassionate. You can see it sometimes in children's faces: what's it like to dive deep into THIS experience of being human, in THIS moment? I've kind of made it my profession to ask it – it's at the center of my work, with groups and individuals, in therapy and supervision, even with the Gender-related work. It always opens a freshness, takes people onto new ground.

I describe what I do as Body-Centered, with a Spiritual or Transpersonal perspective – the teachers who continue to inspire me are A.H. Almaas, Saniel Bonder, Adam Bradpiece, and also Jo Hardy and Colin Harrison. I offer individual (and couples) sessions from my beautiful home in an eco-community in Totnes, Devon. I also teach at the Iron Mill Institute in Exeter, lead a supervision training in Slovakia, and run workshops on Intimate Relating, movement, and meditation in the UK and Germany. I am blessed to be stepfather of Callum (8), and am thrilled to be running the new Psychotherapy of Awakening training at the Iron Mill Institute.

Tutors on Counselling Training

Shirley particularly values the application of Transactional Analysis and the Gestalt approach to therapy.  However, art and creativity is central to her beliefs for working with clients.  Shirley has worked for NCH South West for many years as a counsellor and provided supervision for counsellors within the agency.  She also worked as a counsellor for the Sure Start project at Ilfracombe, North Devon.  Until recently she has been counselling young people up to the age of eighteen.  Shirley is also very committed to the whole area of Addiction and Rehabilitation and currently works as a Criminal Justice Worker for the North Devon Alcohol Intervention Service 'Addaction South West’.  This entails the provision of counselling and the facilitation of group work.

Tutors on Counselling training

Jenny has been training and practising as a counsellor and psychotherapist since the early nineties, following twenty years enjoying a career that included Art College lecturer, magazine illustrator, Graphics co-ordinator for the Marketing Division of an International Electronics Company and exhibiting painter, all, at one point, simultaneously. Her practice as Psychotherapist, Supervisor and Trainer has spanned voluntary, educational, statutory and private sectors. Her approach is integrative, combining a psychodynamically biased Diploma in Counselling with a subsequent Advanced Clinical Training and qualification in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy and additional training in Gestalt and Transpersonal therapies. Her interest in the legacies of Childhood trauma and the dynamics of shame is reflected in her several specialist trainings and includes extensive experience with survivors of sexual abuse and working with eating disorders, self harm and other trauma reenactment behaviours. She experiences her work, both as an artist and as a therapist, as having the common purpose of creating the opportunity for making meaning and inviting connection, both to self and to other.

Tutors on Counselling training

Kate is a school counsellor and co-facilitates workshops, lectures and support groups for the South West Counselling Adoption network. She is a tutor on the Advanced Diploma in Integrative Counselling and previously trained here at the Iron Mill. Kate believes that much of her inspiration as a teacher comes from her experiences of being a student, a client and a counsellor. She is actively dedicated to the Jungian philosophy of theory and practice and gains most of her personal insights from the work of Jung, although Kate also draws on her inspiration from the Integrative model (Gestalt especially) and enjoys living and working both professionally and creatively with this approach. Kate’s style of teaching encourages the development of artistic expression, inspiration, imagination and creative intervention through the exploration of archetypes, fairytales, myths, collage, miniature model work, spirit and dreams.

Tutors on Counselling Children and Adolescents Course

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 is opening a weight management and fitness club for women.

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.

Sheila comes to the Iron Mill with a long experience in complimentary health care, education and supervision. She is passionate about the need for supervision and peer review as compassionate inquiry into life in practice. It is as necessary for the health and well being of the practitioner and therapist as it is for the safety of the client and patient. It is also great fun and a gift to all concerned to stop and look, be mindful of and appreciate the everyday miracles of a life in practice.

Sheila brings an awareness of body, mind, spirit to the work, engaging with symptom, felt-sense, dream and image as easily as model, theory and concept to ‘get alongside’ each unique supervision context.  She has developed this ‘homeopathic approach’ to raise awareness of practice as a full rounded experience and one which involves the higher purpose, the body, the art and the science of practice.

As an experienced group facilitator, teaching and learning happens in response to individual and group needs.  Making and maintaining secure working relationship forms the basis of the work. Story making, art play and role play interweave naturally with reflection on experience, theory and method. 

Sheila works with individuals, teams and organisations in the UK and abroad. She lives on the isle of Portland in Dorset with her husband and son where she also holds Sea Change summer re-creations for practitioners. Daily practice is to play the fiddle, badly, and run Dasher the wire haired fox terrier out along the cliffs each morning.

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.

Karen is the director of Carefree Eating, Exeter which specialises in weight management and eating disorders, providing dietetic and psychotherapy on a one-to-one basis, and in group settings, to adults and children. Since qualifying as a dietitian, Karen has worked in industry, in research environments looking at the role of nutrition and diet in various disorders and in a training and educational role in infant nutrition. She has also worked within the NHS working predominantly with eating disorders, obesity, diabetes, cancer, food allergy and intolerance, gastrointestinal and liver disorders.

As a dietitian, she became aware that eating is often about so much more than food. In certain conditions, a healthy eating plan can only be achieved by exploring the reasons as to why people eat too little or too much and then identifying alternative approaches to resolve these issues. Consequently she trained as a psychotherapist, so that she could offer an alternative approach. She started Carefree Eating which provides dietary advice and support to help people to resolve the psychosocial issues surrounding their eating behaviour and pattern.

Karen has worked as an events coordinator and has been involved in various training initiatives including workshops on healthy eating and food-related behaviour as part of  a PCT-led initiative to promote a healthy lifestyle and weight management; Healthcare Professional training on client motivation and a variety of nutritional related topics; talks and workshops on infant nutrition and management of intestinal disorders. She has developed and taught training courses relating to weight management and eating disorders and also lectures on the Advanced Diploma in Integrative Counselling. In addition, Karen has been involved in a variety of media related projects including production of a DVD on weight management; a weaning video for Film Four; she has written articles for a variety of publications in the South West and she is the nutrition consultant for West Country television and the Express and Echo

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.