Patrizzia Ciaccio
I am a Specialist in Mental Health with 36yrs of experience. I started my career in the NHS as Registered Mental Nurse. I am a Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) registered Mental Nurse working for 20yrs in the NHS. I have sound clinical knowledge, experience and skills in acute, rehabilitative and community psychiatry and as a Specialist Nurse in Drug and Alcohol Misuse. My Mental Health role naturally evolved into offering emotional support to clients and family members and found myself using counselling skills on a daily basis within my role as a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) for 13yrs.
It was during this professional stage of my life that I progressed to train as a Person-Centred and Psychodynamic Counsellor. I became accredited (2000) and registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) organisation. My CPN role led me to providing counselling within the NHS in the primary care setting and developing as a private therapist. I eventually moved away from my CPN role in primary care and focused more on a private counselling practice whilst working within the NHS system as an NHS provider.
Within the NHS I trained and became a registered and accredited (2016) Improved Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) Counsellor in the NHS offering Counselling for Depression (CFD). I continued to progress my skills and graduated with an MSc as a Cognitive Behaviour Therapist (CBT) at Kings College, London University and became accredited (2013) and registered with the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) organisation.
I have further developed my CBT skills to offer CBT based Health and Well-Being Coaching to help clients to lose weight, stop smoking, reduce blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar intake, increase physical activities and other problems as this was naturally happening within my practice.
The COVID-19 outbreaks and guidelines have opened up my practice to offer ‘Online Therapy’ and clients have feedback that the online service has given them more flexibility and access to therapies regardless of their location in the UK, or abroad and can be fitted around life circumstances.
I have a full-time private practice in Hertfordshire and all therapies are held in a quiet, private and confidential space. Many self-funding clients are through client recommendations but I also receive referrals from referring agencies and Health Insurances (BUPA, AVIVA, CIGNA, AXAPP Healthcare).
Alongside the therapies that I offer I provide clinical supervision to therapists and health professionals.
Qualifications
- MSc Advanced Practice in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (Kings College, London)
- Diploma in Person-Centred & Psychodynamic Counselling (University of Hertfordshire)
- Diploma in Integrative Supervision
- Registered Mental Nurse (NMC)
- Diploma in Reflexology (AoR)
- Primary Certificate in Health & Wellbeing Coaching and Stress Management
