Meet Our Core Staff
Our core team strives to provide the local community with high quality counselling and psychotherapy care. Let’s introduce them.
The Relationship Matters
At the FORD Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre, we want our clients to know they are in safe hands. Without safety therapy cannot begin and the relationship between the therapist and client is key to creating this safety. Our team of therapists work to the highest professional standards and are trained to deal with a broad range of mental health and relationship issues.
Our therapists use a diversity of counselling models including Gestalt, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Integrative Therapy, Pluralistic Psychotherapy and Internal Family Systems. These models of therapy work with top down (talk therapy) or bottom up (body based therapies) or an integration of both, depending on the needs of the client, which helps us find potential paths to recovery in a safe, accepting and respectful way.
Michael Dillon
Manager
MIACP, B.A, B.D, Grad Dip Marketing and Management, Dip Counselling and Psychotherapy, Certified Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Practitioner
Michael has been manager of The Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre (formerly Family Life Service) since September 2018.
Michael is passionate about finding ways to empower all who come into contact with our services. He sees mental health as positive resource that needs to be grown and developed to its full potential for everyone. His own life experience and work has taught him the importance of a holistic approach to mental health, integrating mind, body and spirit for the nurturing of wellness.
He is currently Liaison Officer for the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute Professional Association (SPIPA) for its graduates on the Island of Ireland.
Michael also works in a private capacity as a psychotherapist specialising in working with trauma through the use of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and EMDR.
He has worked as counsellor/psychotherapist with the HSE CIPC and SHIP counselling service from 2014 to 2018.
Michael has also worked for 13 years as administrator of the South East Domestic Violence Intervention Programme (MEND) working with men who are abusive in their intimate partner relationships and orgnanising supports for their female partners. He was also co-ordinator of the Men’s Development Network’s Counselling programme, specialising in working with men presenting with incident based trauma and developmental trauma. He is always curious about the challenges that men face in accessing counselling support.
Catherine Power
Therapist and Supervisor
MIAHIP Dip Trauma (Babette Rothschild) Dip Psychosexual Therapy, Post Graduate Diploma in Gestalt Psychotherapy, Gestalt therapist and supervisor Accord Supervisor and Therapist.
Catherine works as a trainer with the Gestalt Institute of Ireland on the MA in Gestalt Psychotherapy awarded by the Institute of Technology Carlow.
Catherine has been working as a therapist at the Ford centre for over 25 years and more recently as a supervisor for the past 10 years.
She began working with Accord over 30 years ago as couples counsellor. With the encouragement and support she received here she has continued to grow and develop the therapeutic skills. She is very committed to giving her best to clients, supervisees and students.
She works in a relational, embodied way to support clients to become more aware of how they are in the world. This supports them to make aware choices in the present, to improve their quality of life.
Working as a trainer with the Gestalt Institute of Ireland helps her to fine tune her skills and keep up to date with the latest developments and theory in the field of psychotherapy. A the moment she is undertaking a two year training with the Italian Gestalt Institute on psychopathology . This is very relevant and supportive for working with personality disorders an issue presenting more and more in the therapy room.
Brenda Boland
Supervisor
MIACP, BSc Econ, MA Gestalt Psychotherapy, Dip IGC, PG Dip. Creative Therapy. Dip in Supervision
With a background in Social Care, Education and Business Brenda completed her initial psychotherapy training with the Irish Gestalt Centre. Since then she has completed further studies and trainings including an MA in Gestalt Psychotherapy, Relational Embodied Trauma Therapy, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Level 1, Creative Therapy, Play Therapy, Couples Therapy and Facilitation Skills training with Accord and training in The Cape Cod Model of working with systems.
She has extensive experience of working as a therapist with the HSE, in education, and with the Accord. Presently, she works as a relational, embodied Gestalt psychotherapist in private practice with adults, and children, couples and family systems.
She also works as an IACP Accredited Supervisor with both individuals and groups in various organisations.An important aspect of her psychotherapy work is as a trainer with the Gestalt Institute of Ireland, where she is involved in all modules of the MA in Gestalt Psychotherapy training which is awarded by Carlow Institute of Technology.
Marian Stack
Therapist
MIACP
Marian has been working at the Ford centre based in Gorey for over 25 years. She qualified as a counsellor from PCI college and is a trained couples counsellor.
Eileen Tatschl
Supervisor
I.A.C.P, MA
Eileen holds a Master’s degree in Supervision since 2011 and she graduated from Trinity College in 2001 as a Counsellor. Over the last 20 years she has worked in the Voluntary, Private and Educational sectors as a Psychotherapist, Supervisor, Group Facilitator and Trainer. Eileen’s theoretical background is both humanistic and integrative. Her style of working as a Supervisor is collaborative, invitational, experiential and creative. She embraces her craft with great authenticity, passion and commitment.
Maria Kennedy
Administrator
Maria has been working at the Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre for over 30 years, initially as a couples counsellor and for the past 25 years as administrator responsible as first point of contact with clients who enquire about counselling/psychotherapy. She is the main link between clients and therapists. She works with the manager to triage clients into the counselling system and liaises between clients and therapists managing the bookings system. Maria also oversees day to day needs of the centre with oversight for purchases.
Eleanor O’Connor
Secretary
Eleanor has been involved with the centre for 30 years. She initially worked as a couples counsellor and sex therapist while being a part-time nurse. In more recent years Eleanor has provided general secretarial support with responsibility for recoding of files, statistics and accounts.
Training and accreditation
We work with 25 therapists, most of whom are fully accredited with either the IACP or the IAHIP. The remainder are qualified and working towards accreditation or are in their final stages of training towards qualification and are also pre accredited with the professional counselling accreditation bodies, either the IACP or the IAHIP.
The Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre supports the training of professional therapists through the provision of therapy placements for a number of professional counselling/psychotherapy training institutions. It therefore is a significant player contributing to the development of effective therapeutic responses to mental health issues both locally and nationally.
- We also have 5 trained bereavement support workers who provide one to one bereavement care.
- Over 90% of our therapists and bereavement support workers provide their professional services in a voluntary capacity.
- We have a core part-time paid staff who provide administration, some core counselling/psychotherapy and supervision.
Our Therapists
All our therapists are qualified to assist with a variety of mental health issues. They are approachable, friendly and provide a confidential service.
This allows them to create an accepting, safe and non-judgemental environment where clients can heal. All therapists and support workers are professionally supervised within the centre in addition to their own individual supervision.
All our therapists:
- Have annual membership of either of the following accrediting bodies IACP or IAHIP and follow their respective codes of ethics
- Adhere to the Code of Ethics and Best Practice of the Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre
- Have their own up to date professional indemnity insurance cover and are also covered by the Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre’s professional indemnity cover
- Inform the Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre of the name of their external supervisor and also attend clinical supervision monthly within the Centre to ensure top-class care is always provided
- Attend continuous Professional Development (CPD) provided by The Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre.
- Are Garda Vetted
Our Bereavement Support Workers
Our bereavement support volunteers are trained in accordance with National Institute for Health Care Excellence standards.
All our bereavement support workers:
- Are line managed
- Adhere to the Code of Ethics and Best Practice of the Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre
- Are covered by the Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre’s professional indemnity cover
- Attend clinical supervision monthly within the Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre to ensure top-class care is always provided
- Attend continuous Professional Development (CPD) provided by The Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre.
- Are Garda Vetted
Our Board
Mary Moran: Chair
Geraldine Quigley: Secretary
Anne O’Brien: Treasurer
Diane O’ Neill
Mary Clancy
Fiona Gilboy
Owen Carton
Noeleen Redmond
