ED

DIAGNOSED COMBINED ADHD & ASD

ADHD & ASD ACCREDITED COUNSELLOR
EMDR THERAPIST
CBT, ACT & DBT THERAPIST
ADDICTION THERAPIST
CHILD & ADOLESCENT THERAPIST
YOUTH COUNSELLOR 10 +

Ed offers Online Therapy and Face to Face Therapy in Norwich, NR1

PROFILE

Ed is an Accredited Counsellor and Psychotherapist, and an EMDR Practitioner, and a registered Social Worker but none of this came easy.

On paper his qualifications look neat and orderly. Counselling, Social Work, Psychology, EMDR, Hypnotherapy, CBT, NLP, trauma trainings. Letters after his name even. But …

Ed grew up on a council estate in West London. His childhood was complicated, unpredictable, sometimes frightening and often confusing. His mum had survived significant abuse in the Irish care system and carried her own trauma into adulthood. Home could feel warm one moment and very different the next. He learnt early on to read the room and stay alert. To adapt.

School did not make much sense either. He struggled to read, spell, could not seem to keep up, got pulled into special needs classes, labelled disruptive and naughty. Teachers talked about behaviour more than learning.  By secondary school he was already being seen as a problem to manage.

Only recently, as an adult reading his old notes, did he discover the diagnoses written about him at the time. Conduct Disorder. Hypochondria. Words that basically meant naughty and bad.

By fourteen he had missed a lot of school and left school with no qualifications. Addiction crept in not long after. Cannabis first, then other drugs, then alcohol. What started as an escape slowly became dependence. His home life was chaotic and uncontained, and substances became a way to quieten everything down. Or at least blur it.

In his early twenties, Ed moved to Essex to live with his Dad, who was then diagnosed with cancer. Ed became his carer for the next five years. It was loving and painful and messy all at once. His dad died when Ed was 27, and something shifted. Not dramatically, not magically, but enough. Five days after the funeral he was admitted into his first alcohol detox at a psychiatric hospital.

He started reading self-help and personal development books, trying to understand what life was about and what happiness even meant. At the time it felt like a strange, almost abstract idea. Then he began studying. Slowly, tentatively. Psychology modules. Night classes. Counselling training. Around that time he was diagnosed with dyslexia at 29, which explained years of struggle he had quietly assumed were personal failures.

Training to become a Counsellor felt different. For the first time, his life experience was not a deficit. It was useful.

He qualified as a Counsellor in 2012, later trained as a Social Worker, and spent years working in children’s services, child protection and with looked after children. He saw first hand how often vulnerable kids were misunderstood or labelled rather than helped. It made him angry.

During this period he also finally received his own ADHD diagnosis, and later autism. More pieces falling into place. There was some grief in that, wondering what might have been different if someone had noticed earlier.

His sobriety journey has not been linear, but today Ed has been sober for six years and has not used class A drugs for over a decade. Life is steadier now. Healthier. He goes to the gym most days, completed a master’s in Psychology of Mental Health and Wellbeing.

He works with Occupational Health services, Youth Services, CAMHS and provides trauma therapy, including EMDR, for emergency service workers and is a provider for AXA, AVIVA and BUPA

But perhaps the work closest to his heart is with ADHD and autistic clients. Children, teenagers and adults who have spent years being told they are too much, too sensitive, too distracted, too difficult. Because he remembers exactly what that feels like.

Ed is also a parent to a neurodivergent teenager and has navigated the battles that come with EHCPs, assessments, disability support and schools that do not always listen!  So when parents sit in front of him exhausted or frustrated, he genuinely gets it.

His style is warm, direct and very human. He does not hide behind jargon or qualifications. He uses them only when helpful. EMDR, hypnotherapy, CBT, ACT, DBT, whatever fits. But he is more interested in the relationship first. He believes therapy works best when it feels real, not clinical.

Clients often say they feel understood quickly with Ed. He is particularly passionate about working with ADHD, autism, trauma, addiction recovery, and people who have felt misunderstood or misdiagnosed. The ones who have slipped through the cracks a bit. The ones who have learnt to mask so well they barely recognise themselves anymore.

Core qualifications and degrees

• MSc Psychology of Mental Health and Wellbeing, University of Wolverhampton 2025 Graduate Member of the British Psychological Society (GMBPsS)
• BA (Hons) Social Work, University of East Anglia  2015
• Foundation Degree in Counselling, Open University  2017
• CPCAB Level 4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling  2012
• Diploma in CBT, Institute of Counselling  2023

Hypnotherapy, NLP training

• Diploma in Hypnotherapy, EAIH Norfolk  2018 – qualified to conduct advanced hypnotherapy
• Diploma in Clinical Hypnosis with Psychotherapy 2022
• Diploma in Hypnoanalysis, EICH Norfolk  2022 – advanced analytical hypnotherapy training
• Licensed Practitioner of Neuro‑Linguistic Programming, The Society of Neuro‑Linguistic Programming 2018 – licensed to 2029

EMDR training and specialist approaches

• Accredited Practitioner in EMDR, EMDR Europe Association
  
• EMDR Basic Training, Richman EMDR Training – Part 1 2023
  
• EMDR Basic Training, Richman EMDR Training – Part 2 2023
  
• EMDR Basic Training, Richman EMDR Training – Part 3  2023
  
• EMDR Europe Accredited Child & Adolescent EMDR Training (Level 1 CORE), Child Trauma Therapy Centre  2024
  
• Advanced EMDR Skills, online training with Rebecca Kase (Trauma Therapy Institute)
  
• Ego States Integration for the EMDR Therapist, online training with Rebecca Kase (Trauma Therapy Institute)
  
• EMDR and Ego States, online training with Jessica Downs (Trauma Therapy Institute)
  
• EMDR for the Treatment of Addiction and Compulsions, online training with Gerard Ilaria (Trauma Therapy Institute)
  
• EMDR & Addictions, online training with Cassie Krajewski (Trauma Therapy Institute)
  
• EMDR for First Responders – specialist EMDR training 2025
  
• Flash Technique training with Phil Manfield 2024
  

Third‑wave CBT and skills‑based approaches

• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Training: DBT Essentials
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Training: ACT Essentials, APT