Ms Nicola Blunden

• Qualifications:MA (Couns), PG Dip (Cons Sup), PGCE (HE), FHEA
• Position:Programme Leader
• Department:College of Health, Science and Society
• Telephone:+4411732 82984
• Email:Nicola.Blunden@uwe.ac.uk

About me

I'm the programme leader for the MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy here at UWE. Previously I was a director of studies at Metanoia Institute in London, and programme leader in the University of South Wales. I've trained counsellors, psychotherapists, supervisors, trainers, and allied professionals. I am a pluralistic integrative therapist, and I have special practice interests in creative methods, plural (dissociative) identity, childhood trauma, and co-creation of therapy.

Politically, I am an advocate of client and practitioner voices, epistemic justice, decolonising the psychology professions, and pluralising knowledge and the academic arena.

I am a member of the Psychological Sciences Research Group PSRG, and the Therapy and Social Change TaSC network.

Area of expertise

In teaching I have specialist knowledge in supporting neurodivergent students, co-productive pedagogy, and all aspects of phenomenological approaches to therapy.

In research I am an active co-producer of research, with interests in critical grounded theory, aesthetics in psychotherapy, improvisation, pluralism, and epistemic justice. I am co-editor of the Pluralistic Practice journal, which is a dedicated space for empirical research, professional reflection, decolonial and marginalised knowledge, and forms a dialogical community of practice for pluralistic research and practice.

I am a founding member of the Therapy and Social Change network. I have lived experience with a hidden disability and I am a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Publications

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