Ethna Vernon

Please contact me to arrange a free 15 min call. This will give us the opportunity to discuss your needs and arrange possible times and dates when we have available. 

Training, qualifications & experience

2023: Currently training with Society of Analytical Psychology  

2019: Registered Rewind Trauma Therapist

2019: EMDR Therapist Fully Accredited

2017: Diploma in Relational Mindfulness, Karuna Institute

2012: Post graduate diploma in systemic family counselling, Tavistock

2011; Post Grad Cert Systemic Counselling, Tavistock

2010 Dip Integrative Psychotherapeutic Counselling, Crawley College

2003; Cert Short Term Counselling, Crawley College

2002; Cert Counselling, Crawley College

1996; Post Grad Drama & Movement Therapy, Sesame Institute

I am a BACP accreditated member. I hold certificates for training in CBT, attachment, neuroscience, resilience, child protection.

I am fully insured.

I have worked in a wide range of setting with people from all walks of life. I have spent years working in drug and alcohol rehabilitations and prison. I have worked in adult day centres with people with mental health issues, people with physical and cognitive disabilities and the elderly.

In more recent years I have worked extensively with professional working in mental health, including psychiatrists, therapists, psychologists and those in training.

I have worked extensively in education covering: primary, secondary schools and universities. As well as running a private practice I have been employed by Dialogue and Dolphin House as a school and family counsellor. I have worked with hundreds of parents to help them be as effective in their role as possible.

Creative Therapy

If you are a creative person and would appreciate a counsellor who reflects this quality please do get in touch. I have much experience and a special interest in working with musicians, artists, photographers actors and all creative people.

Attachment Therapy

I have a particular interest in attachment theory and the impact of insecure bonding. Exploring and working with the manner in which people connect underpins all of my work including couples and family sessions. I love to work with the family genogram, which constantly surprises me. It regularly highlights family patterns, unconscious basis and eventransgenerational trauma. I endeavour to repair the attachment through the client/therapist relationship and bring conscious awareness to behavioural and relationship styles.

Trauma and abuse

I have worked extensively and successfully with the effects experienced from trauma and abuse, including narcissistic parenting. I work with all responses to trauma including: PTSD, dissociative response and de-realisation. I include a range of approaches in treating my clients. I aim for the individual to develop strategies to help build and strengthen an inner sense of safety.

Stress, anxiety and mindfulness

I am an experienced mindfulness practitioner having completed a post-graduate diploma with the Karuna institute and an MBCL course. Mindfulness is effective in relieving pain, providing relaxation, reducing anxiety and stress, lifting depression, and reducing blood pressure. I am able to provided guided meditations and help support living in a more mindful and self-compassionate way.

Integration Therapy and the Transpersonal

Holding space for transcendence has been an interest of mine for over 30 years. I have years of experience working with clients wanting to prepare, share and integrate their experience in expanded states. Depth work, the transpersonal, and integration of our unconscious processes have always underpinned my work.

Our first meeting will be an online appoint of 15 mins. This is free of charge.

I am trained in the Hawkins and Shohet's 7 eyed model. It offers a robust yet creative container,  it is playful, imaginative and attends  the practicalities of the therapeutic relationship as well as the unconscious processes afoot. It is expansive and active, offering ways for the therapist and supervisor to shift focus, potentially adjust the view of the therapist and offering fresh insights in which the client, the therapeutic relationship and the work. 

Briefly the 7 eyed model summarised:

Eye 1 focuses on the client themselves and the counsellor is invited to tell the supervisor the background and context of the client. 

Eye 2 turns toward the interventions the counsellor is using or may try to use with the client. If the counsellor feels stuck, they may ask themselves what has worked already and what may be useful to try. 

Eye 3 is directed onto the relationship between counsellor and client. How does the therapist feel as they sit with their client? 

Eye 4 looks inward, to the counsellor's own inner processes and feelings towards their client. We explore the countertransference arising in the counsellor when sitting with the client. Exploring these processes ensures that the counsellor does not act from a place of unawareness or impulse in the therapeutic work.

Eye 5 is a glimpse into the relationship between the counsellor and the supervisor. Parallel process may arise in which the counsellor responds 'as if' they were their client and the supervisor 'as if' they were the counsellor. This invites exploration of unconscious processes and great care needs to be taken to tune into the images, fantasies and thoughts that arise between counsellor and supervisor, which may offer valuable insight into the client's process 

Eye 6 is the supervisor's inner responses to their supervisee (the counsellor). Including the supervisor's fantasy relationship with the client. Attention is turned through this eye to the countertransference inside the supervisor towards the counsellor and any potential parallels between the relationship between the counsellor and their client.

Eye 7 surrounds everything. This eye is focused on the wider system in which the supervision and therapy takes place.

Eye 8 is a more recent addition to the model and looks to the transpersonal, or spiritual influences surrounding the therapeutic work. 

Please contact me if you are interested in discussing a potential supervisory relationship. 

If you are interested in an initial meeting please feel free to contact me. I offer a 15 minute free zoom call. Here we can establish if we have a mutual time and if we feel we are comfortable to move towards working together.