About Hope
"I did not crawl through the shards of my own brokenness to live a mediocre life. I've prepared for magic." - A. Marie
Hello and welcome, I'm Hope. I am a Person-Centred Counsellor. I'm an American who has called the UK home for more than a decade, and Scotland for over six years.
There was a time when my life looked very different. Following the traumatic birth of my first child, when we both came dangerously close to losing our lives, I experienced various mental health problems. It took me a very long time to reach out for help. I was afraid I would lose my children and be judged for not being well.
As life unfolded, I found myself navigating chronic illness, becoming a survivor of domestic abuse, rebuilding my life as a single parent, and discovering who I was beneath decades of survival.
It was therapy that changed everything.
Not because it erased what had happened, but because it gave me a space where I no longer had to carry everything alone. It helped me reconnect with myself—not the version shaped by trauma, fear or other people's expectations—but the person who had always been there underneath, waiting to be seen.
The help I received through counselling and my experience with mental health struggles is what eventually led me to train as a person-centred counsellor at the University of Aberdeen.
Alongside my studies, I volunteered with a local mother's mental health charity as well as becoming the support coordinator for a miscarriage charity, walking alongside parents experiencing the devastating loss of a baby. That work reinforced something I already believed deeply: people don't need to be "fixed". They need to be heard, accepted and met with genuine compassion.
Before training as a counsellor, I completed a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology. I was able to study and understand the human condition throughout history. This nurtured a deep curiosity about what it means to be human and how our childhoods, families, cultures, relationships and lived experiences shape us. It taught me to look beyond behaviours and instead seek to understand the person behind them—something that continues to underpin my work as a person-centred counsellor.