Hi. I'm Erica.

I'm a psychologist – and no, I can't read your mind, but I can help you understand why you think the way you do!

I’m a Chartered Psychologist registered with the HCPC as a Forensic Psychologist and with the BPS as a Chartered Coaching Psychologist. I hold Practitioner status with the EMCC and am listed on the BPS Register of Approved Applied Psychology Supervisors. I work part-time as a consultant coaching psychologist at Mind Values Leadership, run my own independent practice, and continue to contribute to government and policy work across justice, health, and violence prevention.

Where I come from

My PhD, completed at the University of Birmingham in 2004, evaluated a community-based rehabilitation programme for domestic violence perpetrators. I didn’t know then that I was asking the question I would spend the next two decades pursuing: what actually makes people change?

I went on to hold professorial chairs at Coventry University, the University of Worcester, and Nottingham Trent University where I remain a Visiting Professor in Forensic Psychology. I secured over £2.26 million in research funding, published 59 peer-reviewed journal articles (available here), supervised 12 doctoral students to completion, and served on advisory panels for the Ministry of Justice, the Scottish Government, NHS England, and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.

My research focused on intimate partner violence: its causes, its consequences, and the conditions under which it stops. I studied perpetrators and victims, adolescents and families, programmes and policies. What I found, consistently, was that the factors that allow people to change are relational, contextual, and deeply psychological. Not just what you do with people, but the quality of presence you bring.

That finding changed how I practise.

Where I am now

In 2020 I stepped away from full-time academic life and returned to direct practice: coaching, supervising, training, and creating. I work with individuals navigating significant transitions, with practitioners who need a space to think clearly about complex and demanding work, and with organisations wanting to build genuinely reflective cultures.

I am also a fiction writer. My first novel, What He Kept, follows a psychologist grieving her father - a story about what we inherit, what we carry, and what we eventually set down. A second novel, From the Mat, is in development. The writing is not separate from the clinical work. It is another way of asking and exploring the same questions.

Outside the consulting room, I make things with clay, sing, play cello, run, and photograph birds and landscapes, and am mum to a young adult on his way to becoming a pro golfer, and carer for my mum.

Credentials and training

Qualifications:

• BSc (Hons) Psychology First Class

• MSc Criminological Psychology (Distinction)

• PhD Psychology

Current registrations and qualifications:

—   HCPC Registered Forensic Psychologist

—   BPS Chartered Psychologist (C.Psychol) and Chartered Coaching Psychologist

—   BPS Register of Approved Psychology Supervisors

—   EMCC Practitioner

—   Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society

—   Somatic and Trauma-Informed Coaching Certificate (ICF & CPD accredited)

—   Havening Techniques Practitioner

—   Certified in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), IFS, and Solution-Focused Brief Therapy

—   CMI Level 7 Trauma-Informed Leadership (in progress)

Advisory roles held:

—   Core panel member, Corrections Service Advice and Accreditation Panel (CSAAP), Ministry of Justice

—   Expert reference panel member, Assessment of Risk and Needs System (ARNS), HMPPS

—   Advisory group member, NHS England domestic and sexual violence programme

If what you see here resonates with you, I'd love to meet. Click the link and let's set up a chat.