When I was just a boy I wanted to become an astronaut and so this is why I became a nurse obviously. Well my interest in people and why they behave as they do started at a very tender age. My mother told me that someone I knew was going to university to study psychology. What is that I asked wide-eyed? My mother tried to explain and I was hooked, wow you can know what’s going in inside people’s heads.
So I studied psychology as soon as I could this was at A’level and then later at university. It seems that most of my 5 children are doing the same and have either completed a psychology degree or are about to start one.
Later on I completed the professional training to become a nurse, during this time I realised that it was not so much psychology that was my interest rather it was psychotherapy. Yes psychotherapy definitely. To the uninitiated psychology is about why people behave as they do and psychotherapy is about helping people in distress, emotional or mental distress.
So I went on to train in psychotherapy and hypnotherapy, got myself a private practice and learned a lot about people. Later in my nursing work I came across CBT, cognitive behaviour therapy and did a course in this and used it in my nursing practice. After some 25 years of helping people in distress I came across mental health first aid. I thought I knew all about mental health but having completed to mental health first aid course I realised that this was a whole new perspective and when on to qualify as a mental health first aid trainer. To date I have trained something like 300 people to become mental health first aiders, and they are doing great I often get feedback and sometimes post it here on this blog.
