About Me

I offer mindfulness based psychotherapy, working with adults (18+) in distress, with relationship difficulties, recent and childhood trauma, mental health diagnoses and many other conditions.

Joanna Bleau

I have been exploring mindfulness based psychotherapy since 2005 when I did the Foundation in Core Process Psychotherapy with the Karuna Institute. I continued with the Diploma in Relational Mindfulness (2016), followed by the MA in Mindfulness Based Psychotherapy and am a psychotherapist accredited with the Association of Core Process Psychotherapists and the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy.

Professionally I am also an executive coach  and qualified mindfulness teacher, supporting Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) interventions.

Alongside my therapy and coaching training over the past 15 years, I worked as a business psychologist and executive coach, offering support to leaders in large corporates. For 15 years before that I worked in the NHS as a Director of Human Resources, until the stresses of that life left me depleted and searching for meaning in my work.

Throughout my working life I have learned that the way things appear on the surface with people is frequently far from the reality within, that the impassive work face is often a mask for vulnerability, suffering and a desire for greater wellbeing.  I am building a particular interest in grief, loss and early life trauma.

Somehow along the way I moved from London to Edinburgh, had a daughter, got married, divorced, grieved for lost loved ones, succeeded, failed and experienced life in all its glorious highs and dreadful lows.

 

Ethical Practice in Psychotherapy

One of my motivations for choosing to work independently is a deep desire to work wholly in accordance with my own values; respect, authenticity, transparency, compassion and care are so fundamental to the work in psychotherapy.

I will not work with people I know, nor with people who are friends with my close friends or family. Such relationships are too close and can cause awkwardness or breaches in confidentiality.

My work as a psychotherapist is covered by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy.   The requirements of my training institute, and of the UKCP, are that I maintain client confidentiality at all times, apart from when there is an issue of serious harm to you as my client, another person or a legal obligation to disclose an issue of a criminal nature. In such, very rare, instances, I will inform you that I need to break the contract of confidentiality. I am also subject to the ethical practice policies of the UKCP including those of Diversity and Inclusion. As part of my own support for practice, I am under obligation to work with a therapy supervisor and to update and extend my learning as a psychotherapist on an annual basis through Continued Professional Development.

Thoughts & Blogs

Change happens when you stop trying

All humans face the pain of our imperfection. We are flawed and we don’t like it. Above all we want to avoid our flaws being visible. We try very hard to suppress them and change, yet no-one notices.

Is counselling the same thing as psychotherapy?

Whilst some people feel strongly about these words, they are now often used interchangeably. A commonly cited distinction is that psychotherapy may go on for longer and may go deeper.

Do you ever get hijacked by your inner critic?

Your phone buzzes in your pocket.  You take a look and realise from an incoming text you forgot to make an important call.  You have let someone down. This is a pattern you wish you could break as you hate letting people down.

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