Nicola Blunden

Director of Studies:

BA/Diploma in Person-Centred Counselling

 

MA Counselling  

BACP Accredited Counsellor and Psychotherapist

Post-Graduate Diploma in Consultative Supervision 

Post-Graduate Certificate in Higher Education

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

 

Nicola is Director of Studies for the BSc (Hons) Person-Centred Pluralistic Counselling (Advanced Practitioner). Nicola specialises in student-centred learning and co-production, in which tutors and learners work together to co-create a stimulating and responsive curriculum. In her teaching career, she has been course leader for a masters' research programme (psychotherapy), a master's qualification for post-qualified therapists in social justice project management, and a masters' qualification in consultative supervision.

She enjoys a thriving private practice in and around the South Wales valleys, where she has been working as a therapist for two decades, offering person-centred counselling in a variety of contexts, including offering post-traumatic event support in heavy industry, end of life care, working with 'hard-to-reach' young people, and in long-term, private therapy. She also supervises therapists from a range of modalities, and allied practitioners, including domestic violence advocates and sexual violence advocates. In her practice she specialises in working with parts or configurations of self, and in trauma.

In her research, Nicola is interested particularly in research issues of therapeutic presence, aesthetics, and equality of power in the dialogic relationship. She is also conducting current research in person-centred ethics of care, and in supervisee well-being. 

She is an anti-racist, and anti-oppression advocate in all her professional and personal contexts, striving for greater awareness, accountability and compassion in her relationships.

 

Institute Roles:

Director of Studies (Person-Centred Counselling)

Quality Standards Committee (member)

 

Recent Publications