Wendy has over 15 years of experience working as a Humanistic counsellor, supervisor, and trainer within a hospice environment. This role has taught her to really appreciate life, and she brings this attitude as well as a wealth of knowledge, experience, nurture, and enthusiasm to her tutor role. She has a deep passion for learning and her favourite way to share information is through a relaxed, engaging, conversational approach.
Initially her own academic path and passion for learning led to a Law Degree (LLB) and Post Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice. This developed her skills in critical thinking, structured communication, and problem-solving.
However, a deep sense of fulfilment and really being ‘at home’ in her work, came later in life, with her Foundation Degree in Humanistic Counselling and therapeutic work with clients navigating life-changing loss and trauma. The Level 7 course with Optima reflects her deep respect for Attachment Theory and the personal and relational insights it can bring at the times we feel most lost.
Wendy has years of experience as a facilitator of groups, leading lively discussions and workshops for a wide range of professionals, on sensitive topics such as childhood bereavement, life loss, transitions and change, resilience, loneliness, and self-care. She is committed to creating safe, engaging, fun and supportive learning environments where every participant feels heard and valued. Her desire is to see you not just grasp the material but really flourish, both academically and personally.
Wendy loves cafe culture, and exploring the outdoors on long walks, growing flowers from seed and being with family and friends. These interests reflect her love of making connections, her patience and passion for growth – qualities she brings to each teaching session.

Jo is an attachment-focused psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer with over 35 years’ experience in teaching and supporting the development of therapists. As Founder of Optima Attachment Training, she brings theory to life through warm, relational teaching that helps practitioners grow in both confidence and clinical depth.

Uruj is a BACP Accredited Psychotherapist, former NHS Genetic Counsellor, supervisor, speaker and educator. She runs an online private practice offering attachment-based psychotherapy, supervision and specialist support for individuals, couples and families navigating attachment, grief, trauma, perinatal experiences and genetic diagnoses.
Her therapeutic and educational approach is rooted in the belief that healing and learning happen through relationships. With almost a decade of experience working within NHS clinical genetics, alongside years of psychotherapy practice, teaching and supervision, she brings a research-informed, trauma-informed and relational lens to all her work.
Uruj is deeply passionate about attachment theory and its ability to illuminate how early relationships shape our sense of self, our experiences of parenting, our connections with others, and our capacity to navigate uncertainty, loss and change. She also recognises the wider systems that influence emotional wellbeing, including family dynamics, culture, identity, neurodiversity and inherited experiences.
Teaching on the CPCAB Level 7 Attachment-Focused Psychotherapeutic Pathway to Clinical Mastery is a role she values deeply. She creates a collaborative and reflective learning environment where experienced therapists are encouraged to deepen their clinical thinking, integrate theory with practice, and develop confidence in working with complexity.
Alongside teaching, Uruj delivers workshops, conference presentations and CPD across the UK, sharing her expertise in attachment, genetics and relational psychotherapy with therapists and healthcare professionals.
Outside of her professional life, Uruj is a mother of two. She enjoys nature walks and playing badminton and is continually engaged in learning—about herself, others, and the transformative power of human relationships.

Joanne is a psychodynamic counsellor and supervisor who works primarily with adults, with a particular focus on depression and the deeper emotional patterns that often underlie it. Alongside their client work, they have long held a deep interest in how we use verbal, non-verbal, and even pre-verbal language to make sense of ourselves and our relationships. This fascination naturally led to a specialism in attachment-based therapy.
Before becoming a counsellor, Joanne spent time teaching adults and facilitating learning in a wide range of settings—from origami workshops to poetry seminars. This diverse educational background, combined with a longstanding academic interest in communication and human development, informs both her therapeutic and teaching styles. Joanne believes that learning is most impactful when it is collaborative, reflective, and rooted in real-life experience.
A lifelong learner herself, Joanne views teaching as a natural extension of curiosity and passion for growth. Within the course environment, she sees her role as a facilitator—someone who delivers rich, well-informed content while also nurturing the learning that emerges organically from the group. Joanne values shared reflections, clinical insights, and varied experiences that each participant brings, seeing these contributions as integral to the depth and richness of the training.
Whether learners are newly qualified counsellors continuing their development or experienced therapists exploring new relational frameworks, Joanne’s aim is to foster an open, inclusive, and supportive space. Focusing on helping practitioners from all modalities deepen their theoretical understanding and feel confident applying it meaningfully in their clinical work.

Georgina is an Integrative Attachment-Based Therapist, Supervisor, and Lecturer in Counselling. She works primarily with women, supporting them as they navigate anxiety, loss, relationship difficulties, and life transitions. Her approach is warm, compassionate, and curious, rooted in the belief that when we understand our story and our relationships, we can make meaningful changes to our everyday lives.
Her journey into counselling began through volunteering with Home-Start, where she witnessed first-hand the power of empathy and active listening. Inspired by this experience, she enrolled on an Introduction to Counselling course – the first step in a career she finds deeply fulfilling. Since then, she has worked as a counsellor for Home-Start and the Watford Women’s Centre, as a crisis volunteer with the SHOUT helpline, and now runs a successful online private practice. Alongside her therapeutic and supervisory work, Georgina comments regularly for the press on a range of subjects relating to mental health and wellbeing. This has included appearances on BBC London, Radio Four Women’s Hour and a whole range of newspapers and publications. She is a Media Spokesperson for the BACP and a magazine advice columnist.
Although her initial training was Integrative and rooted in Person-Centred theory, attachment theory became a major lightbulb moment during her studies. It offered what felt like a key to understanding the self, illuminating why we behave as we do and how our early relationships shape our emotional world. This inspired Georgina to complete the Level 5 Diploma in Attachment-Based Therapy and the Level 7 Diploma with Optima, deepening her relational work with clients and her understanding of herself.
Coming from a long family line of teachers, Georgina feels at home in the classroom, whether in-person or online. Her career has gone full circle, and she is now a lecturer on CPCAB courses at West Herts College, where she originally trained, along with being a course tutor on the Optima Level 5 diploma. She finds great joy in exploring and explaining counselling concepts, weaving theory into practice, and learning from her students’ reflections and experiences. Her teaching style is warm, collaborative, and inclusive – and she brings curiosity and enthusiasm to her work without taking herself too seriously, creating a space where learning feels both supportive and alive.
She believes that therapy, supervision, and teaching have an enormous amount in common – each offering lifelong opportunities for growth and development.

Jane is an experienced relationship counsellor working online with individuals and couples both within a busy private practice and also for the relationship organisation – relate, where she also teaches within a diploma program.
Jane adopts an integrative approach which is firmly rooted within attachment theory.
Jane’s passion for understanding and working with people began by studying Psychology at University, graduating with a BA Hons degree. Following that she spent a year solo travelling around the world across many different countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. Her love of the learning environment began when she joined a media company and remained there for 12 years, growing a career in training and development, working within the UK and in South Africa.
Experiencing an episode of (what would now be recognized as) post-natal depression following her first sons’ birth, she was inspired to want to retrain as a counsellor.
She gained her essential counselling qualifications before completing a 2-year Diploma in Relationship Counselling.
Jane offers an enthusiastic, encouraging and inclusive learning environment, where she prides herself on enabling others to reach their full potential.
Outside of her professional roles, Jane enjoys getting out in nature with her family, running and cycling.

Lauren will be co-tutoring with Jane for the first term in September, she is an attachment-based psychotherapist and BACP-registered counsellor working in private practice in Surrey. Her clinical work spans young people and adults in mental health agencies and private practice.
Much of her practice sits with anxiety in its relational forms — the anxiety that lives in how we connect with others and with ourselves. She works with clients on understanding and repairing relationships, building self-trust, and managing stress, using attachment theory as the lens for making sense of patterns that often began long before the presenting issue.
Before training as a therapist, Lauren spent her career in corporate HR and leadership, and that background is part of what draws her to teaching: an interest in how people learn, develop and are supported to grow into a role.
She is particularly interested in creative approaches to therapeutic work — building and adapting resources for those moments when words aren’t enough — and brings the same practical, resource-led approach to the training room.

Gav is an attachment-based psychotherapist and trainer with a flourishing private practice. He works with adults who have experienced challenging pasts—often shaped by childhood trauma, neglect, or emotional disconnection—supporting them to navigate painful emotions, self-sabotaging behaviours, and unhelpful thought patterns that can hinder a fulfilling life. His therapeutic offerings include both online sessions and walk-and-talk therapy, reflecting his belief that healing can occur in diverse environments.
Although Gav trained initially as an integrative therapist, he consistently found himself drawn back to attachment theory. For him, it serves as the thread that weaves together a wide range of approaches, offering a powerful framework for understanding emotional suffering and transformation. He values its capacity to provide structure, track therapeutic progress, and decode the defensive dynamics that often arise within the client-therapist relationship.
As a trainer, Gav is passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience. His teaching style is relaxed and collaborative, aimed at fostering a safe, supportive environment where learners feel confident to ask questions, reflect deeply, and connect theory to their clinical practice. He hopes participants leave his courses feeling inspired, empowered, and more grounded in their identity as therapists.
Outside of his professional role, Gav enjoys walking in nature and spending quality time with the people who matter most to him. He looks forward to supporting others on their journey into this meaningful, challenging, and profoundly rewarding profession.

Abi will be co-tutoring with Gav, she is a Psychotherapeutic Counsellor and EMDR Practitioner & Supervisor working in private practice at The Bloom Room MK in Milton Keynes. Her clinical work includes individual and couples therapy, with particular interests in attachment, trauma, neurodiversity, identity and relational patterns.
Her approach is integrative, drawing particularly on attachment theory, person-centred practice, psychodynamic thinking, Transactional Analysis and CBT, alongside EMDR and psychoeducation. At the centre of her work is an interest in understanding not simply what somebody does, but what may sit underneath it, how early relationships, experiences, adaptations and nervous-system responses can continue to shape the way we experience ourselves and others in adulthood.
Abi has a particular interest in making theory accessible and useful within clinical practice. She enjoys exploring the point where theory meets the person in the room, using reflection, curiosity and creative ways of working to help clients understand patterns that may previously have felt confusing or difficult to articulate.
Her work with neurodivergent clients has also developed into a significant area of clinical interest, particularly where neurodivergence intersects with attachment, trauma, masking, relationships and sense of self. She is interested in how established therapeutic theory can be understood through a neurodivergent lens, while remaining attentive to the individuality of each client’s experience.
Abi completed the Level 5 Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling with an Attachment Focus with Optima and brings that experience with her into teaching. Her teaching style is reflective and theory-led, with an emphasis on helping students develop their own clinical thinking rather than simply learning theory in isolation. She encourages curiosity, discussion and thoughtful challenge, particularly around what theory might look like when sitting opposite a real person in the therapy room.
Alongside her clinical and teaching work, Abi continues to develop therapeutic models and psychoeducational resources through The Bloom Room, often emerging from themes she encounters repeatedly within her practice.
For Abi, becoming a therapist is as much about developing the capacity to think, reflect and remain curious as it is about acquiring knowledge. She hopes to create a learning environment where students feel able to explore ideas, question what they think they know and gradually develop confidence in their own way of being a therapist.
Outside of work, she is a mother of three in a neurospicy household, and brings her lived experience alongside a love of horses and music, all of which inform her grounded, human approach to her work and teaching.

Darren is an Attachment-Based Psychotherapist, Trainer, and experienced therapeutic Foster Career with a counselling background rooted in humanism, particularly the person-centred approach. With over two decades of experience in training and assessment across various educational and therapeutic settings, he also runs a thriving private counselling practice in Kent.
He works primarily with men, neurodiverse individuals, and counsellors or trainees, offering a warm, congruent, and open therapeutic presence that fosters meaningful relational work. Darren is an accredited member of the BACP and is deeply committed to supporting clients and learners in developing greater insight, resilience, and self-awareness.
Attachment theory became central to his clinical identity after he observed its powerful impact on client outcomes—unlocking stuck processes and enabling profound, lasting change. His professional understanding is enhanced by personal experience: for over 13 years, he and his husband have been therapeutic foster careers, providing long-term care to children with complex emotional and developmental needs. Darren also coordinates the Mockingbird project for a fostering agency, managing a support model where hub careers provide structured support to networks of foster families—living the principle that it takes a village to raise a child.
These combined personal and professional experiences deeply inform his approach to therapy and teaching. Darren’s training style is reflective, inclusive, and gently humorous. He fosters a safe, welcoming environment where learners are invited to bring their full selves—bridging theory and lived experience to make the work authentically human and transformative.
Beyond his professional life, Darren enjoys travel, theatre, and spending quality time with his family. He believes in the deep interconnection between personal and professional growth, a perspective that shapes his work with learners—encouraging them to explore not just what they do as therapists but who they are in a relationship.

Jo will be co-tutoring with Darren for the first term in September, she is an Attachment and Relationship Therapist, clinical supervisor, and tutor in attachment-based psychotherapy. She teaches on the Level 5 Diploma in Attachment-Based Psychotherapy, supporting counsellors and therapists to integrate attachment theory into meaningful, relational and ethically grounded clinical practice.
Her work is rooted in the understanding that our early relational experiences shape how we experience ourselves, others, intimacy, parenting, emotional regulation and connection. Jo has a particular interest in how attachment patterns emerge within couple relationships, parenting relationships and the therapeutic relationship, supporting clients and practitioners to move beyond insight towards more secure, embodied and compassionate ways of relating.
Jo’s interest in attachment began early in her career.
She worked extensively in the perinatal and early years field as a postpartum doula, supporting new parents through attachment-informed practice and psychoeducation. Alongside this, she worked as a children’s mindfulness coach and facilitated baby massage and mother–baby support groups, holding space for early bonding, emotional attunement and parent–infant connection.
This foundation continues to shape Jo’s clinical and teaching work today. She delivers Circle of Security programmes for both parents and professionals, helping participants develop a deeper understanding of attachment needs across the lifespan. Her experience in early attachment, parenting and relational development brings depth and warmth to her teaching on the Level 5 Diploma in Attachment-Based Psychotherapy.
Jo has a special interest in attachment-based couples therapy. She integrates Emotionally Focused Therapy, EFT, and Attachment-Based Therapy, ABT, to help couples make sense of their relationship patterns, protective strategies, emotional needs and cycles of disconnection. Her work supports greater understanding, repair and the development of more secure ways of relating.
Alongside her clinical practice, Jo brings a thoughtful, relational and reflective approach to teaching. She is passionate about helping therapists apply attachment theory in counselling and psychotherapy practice in ways that feel alive, practical and clinically useful. Her teaching style is collaborative, grounded and engaging, creating a learning environment where students can explore both theoretical knowledge and their own relational patterns with care and curiosity.
Jo views the learning environment as a secure base: a space where curiosity, reflection, uncertainty and lived experience are welcomed as central to the learning process. She values the richness each participant brings and encourages learning that is both personally and professionally transformative.
Jo is also a mother of three boys, an experience that continues to deepen her appreciation of the complexity, challenge and beauty of relationships in everyday life.