I was born in a small Greek community in South Albania in the late 80's. My first memories from that era include a close community of people that despite the hardship and poverty brought by the communistic era, supported each other deeply. This changed when my family, in the fall of communism in 1992 and in an effort to flee the political and financial unrest, immigrated to Greece. From there, my upbringing included the pain of uprooting, a fight for survival, racial discrimination and exclusion. As a highly sensitive child, I carried the trauma of exclusion, a deep shame for who I was and a sense of not belonging deep into my bones, well into my adult life.

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In my mid-twenties, I experienced severe anxiety that was the catalyst for me to face my own "demons". This is where I met anxiety intimately for the first time. In the early days I tried with all my being to push it away, I allowed it to terrify me, I thought I would never recover from It. It was only when I slowed down that I was able to listen to what my anxiety was trying to communicate to me. That is when I met myself for the first time in my life. My extremely traumatised, tender, highly sensitive, highly relational self that I had abandoned for a few decades in my need to survive. 

 

While I hold a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology and a Master's Degree in Developmental Psychology, the idea of becoming a counsellor was planted in my mind while undertaking therapy to deal with my own trauma and anxiety attacks. The therapeutic space was so different from what I had experienced before. There was gentleness here, attunement, empathy and a tender calling to healing and personal growth. These conditions did wonders for my soul and deciding to follow that path of work myself, I retained a Postgraduate Certificate in Counselling and Psychotherapy and a Pg Diploma in Counselling from the University of Edinburgh.

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Throughout my years of practice I have worked with people from many different backgrounds and a wide age range. I have a broad experience in working with loss and bereavement, anxiety, depression, trauma, work related stress, physical/emotional/sexual abuse, domestic violence and self esteem issues.

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In 2016,  I completed a training course on grief and bereavement in the University of Edinburgh.This gave me the opportunity to enrol and work with Cruse Bereavement Care Scotland through which I gained some wonderful experience in working with the sacred process of grief. Through Cruse I gained a certificate in "Working with Bereaved Children and Young People" which enables me to offer a therapeutic space to younger clients who go through bereavement.

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As a therapist I believe that the therapeutic process is a journey of going back to one’s self, to that human who is worthy, lovable, full of light and an uncompromised part of the universe. I believe that no matter what life can throw at us at any age , no matter the trauma, hardship, loss of self and pain we all more or less go through, we have the internal tendency and capacity for healing, growth and wholeness.

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I am a registered member of British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy(BACP)