Catherine encountered the worst aspects of the counter cultural revolution in the 1970’s when as a hippy teenage runaway, she suddenly found herself being ‘traded’ for LSD , resulting in much trauma, including being committed for a year in a psychiatric hospital where she was administered ECT on a weekly basis for months on end. No one had asked her what had happened to her.

After 13 years of finding ways to help herself survive these traumas, she found the work of Carl Rogers and so in 1994 , was accepted to train in the person-centred approach at the University of East Anglia. Mainly working in the voluntary sector, Catherine was driven to support people in the attitudes of the approach as she knew first hand that the mental health system itself was brutal and damaging. Eventually she travelled to La Jolla (USA) where she offered a presentation for Carl Rogers centenary, with Brian Thorne called ‘The Cost of Integrity’. There she met many of the movers and shakers of the Person-Centred Approach and most importantly connected to Pete Sanders and Maggie Taylor Sanders who had established PCCS Books. She was approached to be involved in the M A in person-centred experiential counselling at the University of Nottingham, where she worked for 12 years.

Thirty years on from gaining her ‘diploma’ she is now a self publisher and seeks to encourage others to broaden their considerations around the application of person-centred attitudes.