Hi there, I’m Paula.

I started my working life as a chef. During that time, I began volunteering, first with a befriending charity and then as a welfare rights worker.

I quickly found my place in the voluntary sector and decided to study Community Education.

For most of my working life, I’ve worked in the third sector, doing community work, youth work, and caring for young people in residential settings.

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My background

While bringing up my family, I stayed involved in local voluntary organisations.

I worked at the Borders General Hospital as part of the spiritual care team, supporting patients of all beliefs and none. I later became a trustee of the Chaplaincy Centre.

Helping people sit with uncertainty, face their fears, find meaning in difficult times. That thread runs right through my counselling work today.

After moving to Fife, I worked in a community bakery and became involved in my local Green Party branch.

I later became branch co-convenor just after the 2014 referendum, when we were a wee party with an even smaller branch. Membership grew from around 60 folk to nearly 700.

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My path into counselling

Around that time, I started studying with the Open University and found counselling training locally.

Now I work for myself as a therapist, and I genuinely love the work I do.

I bring all of this experience into my practice and offer a space where people can talk things through in their own way and at their own pace.

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Training and qualifications

I am trained in person-centred counselling and psychotherapy, and I am a Counsellor Member of COSCA (Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland).

Qualifications:

• Person-Centred Counselling and Psychotherapy DipHE, University of the Highlands and Islands
• COSCA Skills Certificate in Counselling, Borders College
• CertHE in Health and Social Care, The Open University

All of this: the community work, the activism, the hospital chaplaincy, raising a family. I bring it all into the room with me. My approach is grounded in real life, not just theory. I take my professional responsibilities seriously: I work within COSCA's ethical framework and receive regular supervision. But what matters most to me is that you feel genuinely heard.

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