About me..... a brief profile

Since moving to the North East of England in 2016, I find myself fielding the same FAQs.  "Canadian or American?"  "What part?"  "Are you just visiting?"  "How long are you here for?"  "Do you miss the States?" "Which do you like better?"

The more inquisitive ask:  "What brought you here?"  "Where's that (surname) from?"  and "So what do you think of Trump?"  

It is to be expected outside the cosmopolitan capital but when I inform them that I have lived in England for more than a generation, I sometimes hear:  "You still have a twang." or "Your accent hasn't changed!"  or the 'compliment' "You still have the accent but it has softened".  Really?  A lot of assumptions there, eh!

For the record, I was raised in a beautiful seaside borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey.  I lived in southern Sweden for one summer in 1979 and I am an alumnus of the University of Minnesota Duluth where I double-majored in geography and urban studies.  I hold dual citizenship in the US and UK and I have been legally American-British since 2006.

I have been living in dear old Blighty since the mid-1990s.  When I was a geographic analyst for a Silicon Valley digital mapping company, I was seconded to London to work on a sat-nav prototype for the consumer market.  My career and personal life took a new direction and I undertook an onerous immigration campaign that lasted almost twelve years from start to finish.  My surname is Italian but I haven't any Italian heritage and that is a private family matter.  Of course, I miss the States just as I would miss Britain if I were to leave.  And finally, I am seldom drawn on that loaded question about my President.

My community values are positively informed by my hometown and my worldview has been enhanced by a trans-Atlantic perspective and my lived experiences - both good and bad.

I have made a number of career changes over my working life out of sheer necessity.  Prior to being a counsellor/psychotherapist, I was the project manager of an individualized health and wellbeing programme for an interactive healthcare company.  I then retrained at the Metanoia Institute in London in 2012.

After I qualified in 2016, I relocated with my partner to the family farm at the Northumberland coast where I launched my private counselling and psychotherapy practice.  I was more than ready to escape the congestion, stress and toxicity of metropolitan London.  I draw nourishment from the space, nature and seashore on my doorstep.  It is far from pristine but we are doing our bit to leave the environment in better shape than we found it.

As so many businesses are embracing sustainability, I invested a year's research into how I could adopt sustainable practices in my own counselling/psychotherapy service.  Late last year I began transitioning to ecotherapy with an aim to dedicating the therapeutic work I do with my clients to a healthier planet and communion of living things.

I live just outside Whitley Bay in a cottage on a traditional Northumbrian farmstead at the coast.  I have a warm and inviting counselling room and abundant outdoor space for semi-private and semi-public ecotherapy sessions.