Members

Poly Counselling UK was set up by Meg John Barker, Grant Denkinson, DK Green, Emily Hodgkinson and Henry Strick van Linschoten. Over time we hope to involve more counsellors and therapists with expertise in openly non-monogamous relationships.

Biographies for some of the founder members can be found below.

Meg John Barker is a senior lecturer in psychology at the Open University as well as being a qualified therapist specialising in sex and relationships and working at London Friend. Meg John’s main focus is on relationships, sexuality, and mental health, and running the counselling course at the Open University, which is based around the book Understanding Counselling and Psychotherapy.

Meg John runs the BiUK group which recently produced The Bisexuality Report on bisexual experience in the UK, and contributed to the British Psychology Society report on working with sexual and gender minorities.

Meg John’s book Rewriting the Rules, and the blog of the same name, explore the common rules of relationships and how we might think about things differently. They have also published edited books on non-monogamy and BDSM, co-edits the journal Psychology & Sexuality and co-organises the free Critical Sexology seminar series. You can follow Meg John on twitter @megjohnbarker

Grant Denkinson is a counsellor / psychotherapist working in private practice in Leicester and also working with De Montfort University Student Support. He holds a Masters in Integrative Psychotherapy awarded by the University of Birmingham via the Sherwood Institute in Nottingham. He is a BACP member.

Grant has been active in UK polyamory for some years. He has administered the uk-poly email list for around a decade, organised the first UK Polyday in Leicester, helped with subsequent ones and given talks and facilited a variety of workshop sessions on polyamory. He has also appeared in the national media on the subject.

Grant is running a training course Understanding Polyamory and non-monogamies in London 27 October 2012 as part of Pink Therapy’s Alternative Sexualities course.

Henry Strick van Linschoten is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist with a private practice in NW London. He has trained at the Bowlby Centre and Regent’s College. He has special expertise in sexuality and relationships, gender and sexual diversities, anxiety and trauma, and has worked for eight years in the NHS. Henry had an earlier career in business, which took him to more than six countries to live.

Henry is a researcher for and advisor of Confer. Henry works integratively with a relational orientation. He has special interests in forensic issues and social science research. More to read, including blogs, on www.henrystrick.com, and Henry is on twitter @henrystrick

Emily Hodgkinson PhD is a UKCP-accredited psychotherapist, trainer and facilitator based in Leicester.  She has a Diploma in Process-Oriented Psychology (www.rspopuk.com) and works with individuals and relationships.  Emily has specialised in working with sexual and gender diversity and spent six years running the counselling service at Leicester Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Centre.  She is passionate about and fascinated by sexuality and relationships and loves working with these subjects in private practice.

She formerly worked as a researcher in environmental geology and continues her interest in environmental matters through a special interest in eco-psychology.

Emily loves supporting groups to work on difficult issues and provides training and facilitation for environmental, grassroots and public sector organisations focusing on conflict, diversity and the psychology of people’s relationship to environmental issues.  She has facilitated public open forums on climate change and is a member of Rhizome (www.rhizome.coop), a co-operative of grassroots facilitators.

DK Green (www.dkgreen.com) is a qualified psychotherapist / counsellor with a successful private practice in the Midlands, specialising in gender and sexual diversites (LGBTQ, poly, kink, tantra) and self development. Additional studies of Life Coaching, Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy and NLP inform his practice. Provided two years of voluntary counselling services for M.I.N.D. (Mental Health Charity).

He teaches, facilitates, assists and leads extensive gender and sexuality diversities classes, groups, talks and workshops nationally (since the nineties), including at five UK Universities as well as for National events such as SM Pride, Kinkfest (Organising Director 2004), the Pink Therapy Conference, Urban Tantra and Tantra4GayMen.

Active in the UK Poly community since 1999, assisting at the first Polyday with Grant, giving talks on polyamory and appearing publicly in the Media for interviews.