Emma is a senior mental health nurse practitioner and EMDR therapist.

Emma has been qualified in nursing for 21 years; completing her nursing diploma in 2002 and has worked in many areas of mental health over this time and went on to complete her BA Honours degree in ‘Mental Health Practice’ 4 years later.  She is experienced in working with various mental health difficulties with children and adults including: Anxiety Disorders – such as OCD, Intrusive Thoughts, Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety and Phobias. Depressive illnesses, Emotional Dysregulation, Sleep Problems, Stress – including family, relationship, work stress. She is also experienced in more severe mental illness such as Psychosis and Major Affective Disorders.

In her nursing capacity, Emma can offer assessment and formulation of mental health problems, provide interventions including: advice, psychological education, support and training on the development of effective coping strategies and skills to help manage symptoms. She provides ongoing assessment of the clients’ needs in order to build a better understanding of their story.  This in order to get to the root cause of the problem and to help the client make sense of their experiences.

Emma’s true passion is for EMDR. As an EMDR therapist Emma has worked with many people over the years and has witnessed some amazing results, often when other therapies have had limited impact. This is often because the cause of the difficultes a client has been experiencing is due to traumatic experiences or attachment issues in childhood. Emma believes a lot of what we struggle with in the present is due to the past. Emma believes EMDR helps clients achieve what they really want, which is to stop being triggered and to put an end to their difficulties once and for all. very often our early life experiences, even if at first glance, they don’t seem traumatic, can cause ongoing anxiety and depression and indeed other symptoms including physical symptoms throughout our lives. It is working on these earlier life experiences that can lead to symptom reduction and long-term change. Having had EMDR herself she has experienced this first hand.

Emma also works with children and adolescents. She has found EMDR to be very effective with the children she has worked with, often getting results very quickly.

Emma is experienced with various trauma presentations including single event traumas as a result of an assault, accident, loss/bereavement, other one-off incidents which are seen as disturbing in some way and continue to cause trauma symptoms such as flashback, nightmares, hyperarousal, depression, anxiety, panic attacks and suicidal ideation. She also works with complex trauma including childhood trauma, attachment issues, complex grief, suicide, chronic anxiety and depression, dissociative presentations, functional neurological disorders (FND), suicidal ideation and self-harm, urge reduction or harmful behaviours. 

Emma has studied at various levels with other approaches including  Counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy(CBT), Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), Solution Focussed Therapy(SFT) and hypnotherapy which aids her in delivering an eclectic approach which for a lot of people is what is needed. Emma has always had a great rapport with her patients and believes the relationship between client and therapist is crucial in making any therapy work.

Professional Qualifications

Nursing diploma – Northumbria University

B.A. (Hons) Mental Health Nursing – Northumbria University

Further Training

Attachment­ Focused EMDR Course 2022 – Laurel Parnell

EMDR Level 1 Child and Adolescent EMDR training 2022 – Susan M.Darker-Smith

EMDR – EMDR UK – Alexander Richman – 2018

Introduction to Hypnosis – British Society of Clinical and Academic Hypnosis – 2018

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Informed Skills Training 2014

Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) – Communicating Excellence – Nigel Hetherington – 2014

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy degree module – Northumbria University – 2006

Solution focussed therapy degree module – Northumbria University – 2006

AEB Certificate in Counselling Theory 1 year – Counselling School of Counselling and Therapy – 1997

AEB Certificate in Counselling Skills 1 year – Counselling School of Counselling and Therapy – 1997