Life Therapies Clinic and Professional Training

07706 [email protected] Life Therapies HomeBlogContact Us Clinics » Treatment & Recovery Assessment Workshops Professional Training The Team » Blog » Bridin McKenna – Principal & Lead Therapist Bridin McKenna UKCP Accredited Clinicalni wm clinic_34 (1) Psychotherapist & Eating Disorder Clinician Bridin is accredited by the UKCP as a clinical psychotherapist with a specialism in neurolinguistic psychotherapy (NLPt), hypno-psychotherapy and energy psychologies. She is a leading eating disorder clinician, obesity specialist, trainer, master trainer, speaker, consultant, advocate, and is Northern Ireland’s only practicing holistic psychotherapist. Bridin began training for a Post Graduate Diploma in Psychotherapy in 2005 and during this time spent five years working in the voluntary sector with an addiction and substance misuse charity supporting clients with a wide range of diverse and complex mental health issues such as substance and behaviour addiction, gambling addiction, trauma, PTSD, self-harm, childhood sexual abuse, personality disorders, and dealing with the aftermath of suicide, while developing a particular interest in helping clients who struggled to manage their weight or food intake. After qualifying as a psychotherapist Bridin travelled to London to undertake specialist training with the National Centre for Eating Disorders, gaining the nationally recognised award of master practitioner in eating disorders and obesity. Responding to growing demand for specialist services she then launched Northern Ireland’s first clinic treating obesity and eating disorders using evidence based psychological, physiological, nutritional and integrative treatment models. Life Therapies Clinic offers professional, confidential and expert support, consultancy, professional training and coaching for obesity prevention and management, weight management, and eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, compulsive or binge eating disorders, dieting syndrome, body dysmorphia, body image distress and other associated mental health conditions. Bridin began to further recognise the need for specialist professional training in Northern Ireland with increased demand and waiting lists for eating disorder services, no provision for an established NHS weight management service or access to bariatric solutions to deal with the rapidly growing levels of adult persons with obesity, rapidly growing levels of childhood obesity, and a growing and unrecognised pandemic of persons struggling with emotional and binge eating behaviours. She subsequently trained with and continues to be uniquely mentored by world leading expert Deanne Jade, founder and principal of the National Centre for Eating Disorders in London. Bridin is one of only five trainers worldwide qualified to deliver their Master Practitioner Programme in Ireland and she is approved by the British Psychological Society (BPS) as an associate trainer for The National Centre for Eating Disorders. She is qualified to train professionals to diploma level in: Excellence in Practitioner Skills for Eating Disorders and Essential Obesity; Psychological Interventions for Weight Loss. Further to this Bridin formed a training partnership with Awaken School for Outcome Oriented Psychotherapies in order to offer a UKCP accredited four year training pathway to a post graduate diploma in psychotherapy and professional accreditation with UKCP as an alternative or addition to BACP membership in Northern Ireland. Bridin’s passion for change then brought her to the World Centre for Global Health in Annecy, France, with the European Association for the Study of Obesity, where she was honoured to be offered a place on the 2018 Train the Trainer in Obesity Management and Prevention with world leading experts, scientists and researchers working in the field of obesity. She is currently collaborating with EASO to design and deliver a training programme for health professionals and public health sectors working with prevention and management of obesity, and she holds professional membership with the UK Association for Obesity Research and The Irish Association for Obesity Research. Bridin is an leading advocate for persons with obesity and with a growing recognition worldwide that obesity is a complex disease in response to an abnormal environment she is driving an awareness of obesity related stigma and weight phobia in order to educate and inform health professionals, public health campaigns and members of the general public about the consequences of this bias. Within this role she is a frequent expert guest speaker at health and wellness events and conferences, where she speaks about a wide range of subjects such as food and mood for mental health, a trauma informed approach to addiction, eating disorders and body esteem, energy psychotherapies for stress, and obesity related topics. Bridin is available for consultancy and corporate training, workshops or corporate mental health programmes. Bridin has a broad base work and personal background that has equipped her with a vast resource of experiences that are invaluable to her as a therapist, enabling greater understanding and effective progress in your therapy. Holistic psychotherapy values each individual as a unified whole, consisting of mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, social, and environmental forces that simultaneously and equally affect health and well-being. As a holistic psychotherapist Bridin is trained in the use of psychological, physiological, nutritional, and mind-body/energy psychologies, to heal individuals at all levels of being, to restore a state of optimal mental and physical health, as naturally and efficiently as possible. Bridin continuously updates her knowledge and thinking, drawing from the growing evidence base in cutting edge fields such as; behavioural epigenetics, psychoneuroimmunology, neuroscience, physiological regulating medicine, energy psychologies, nutritional psychiatry, functional medicine, gut microbiome and epigenetics. With a particular interest and experience in working with treatment of addictive behaviours, attachment disorders, borderline personality disorders, chronic anxiety disorders, childhood sexual abuse, trauma and PTSD, Bridin holds specialist qualifications for working with eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and compulsive eating disorders with evidence based treatment models for obesity and weight management. Bridin has extensive experience working with anxiety based disorders, trauma, CSA or recent sexual trauma, she is also trained to deal with the aftermath of suicide. She is a qualified practitioner of clinical hypnotherapy, hypnoanalysis, EMDR, NLP, energy psychology, matrix reimprinting and a master practitioner and master trainer of EFT, also drawing from CBT, CBT-E, mindfulness and positive psychology approaches. Bridin is a GOE approved EFT and Energy Master Trainer and offers certified training for: Positive EFT and EFT levels one, two & three to Master Practitioner Level. Training, qualifications & experience: UKCP Registered Accredited Clinical Psychotherapist Post Graduate Diploma in Advanced Patterns in Psychotherapy, Brief solution focussed outcome therapies, neurolinguistic-psychotherapy, hypno-psychotherapy, CBT (cognitive behavioural techniques) Master Practitioner in Eating Disorders and Obesity Advanced Diploma in Eating Disorders and Nutritional Interventions for Eating Disorders Diploma in Practitioner of Psychological Interventions for Weight Loss Practitioner in Nutritional Interventions for Eating Disorders Practitioner in Advanced Clinical Weight Loss Practitioner in Clinical Hypnotherapy and Counselling Master Practitioner in Neurolinguistic Programming Practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming Practitioner in Free Association Hypnoanalysis Practitioner in E.M.D.R (Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing) Practitioner in Virtual Hypnotic Gastric Band Master Trainer in Emotional Freedom Techniques and Energy Psychologies Master Practitioner in Emotional Freedom Techniques and Energy Therapies Advanced Practitioner in Emotional Freedom Techniques; Levels one, two and three. Professional Memberships: Bridin regularly updates her CPD, takes professional supervision and holds professional membership with the following organisations: UK Council for Psychotherapy: http://hypno-psychotherapy.org.uk/ Awaken School of Outcome Oriented Psychotherapies: https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/training-organisations/awaken-school-o… National Centre for Eating Disorders: https://eating-disorders.org.uk/ Association of Obesity Research: https://www.aso.org.uk/ Irish Association of Obesity Research: http://asoi.info/ The Guild of Energists: https://goe.ac/ Certificates; Emotional Freedom Techniques; Levels one, two and three. Advanced Practitioner Certificate; Matrix Reimprinting Practitioner Certificate: Emotional Freedom Techniques for Eating Disorders and Addictions NOCN Drug and Alcohol Awareness Training Suicide Postvention Training Member organisations Registered / Accredited When we say things like “people don’t change” it drives scientists crazy because change is literally the only constant in all of science. Energy. Matter. It’s always changing, morphing, merging, growing, dying. It’s the way people try not to change that’s unnatural. The way we cling to what things were instead of letting things be what they are. The way we cling to old memories instead of forming new ones. The way we insist on believing despite every scientific indication that anything in this lifetime is permanent. Change is constant. How we experience change that’s up to us. It can feel like death or it can feel like a second chance at life. If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline. Like at any moment we can have another chance at life. Like at any moment, we can be born all over again. Grey’s Anatomy