Therapeutic Diversity Training offers helping professionals the opportunity to effectively and empathically support their clients as they explore new ways of living and relating.
We’re here to interpret unfamiliar worlds.
Cherish Dorrington, Retired professional counsellor
Throughout my career of over two decades, I have had an overarching passion to assist others in creating lives of authentic harmony, free from the shame and fear that is so prevalent in western culture. This means thinking outside of the box, yet, the freedom to do so is all too very often trumped by an innate need to be accepted. Working with a diverse cross-section of clientele in my practice over the years, as society itself has immensely shifted, has provided me an incredible field of learning and growth. This has given me a wonderful breadth of experience and knowledge that I now want to pass on to you.
These clientele have been from LGBTQ+, BDSM and Ethical Non-Monogamy communities and I have a particular penchant for seeing these people thrive in the health and well being fields. I see great opportunity for those within the health fields to assist marginalized groups by creating a shame-free environment of courageous vulnerability and personal ownership, for those longing to break free of the internal and external pressures we are conditioned by.
With a keen interest in human sexuality and relationships and an emphasis on personal expression, I became a go to within my community for those wanting to explore more alternative styles to being and relating, when there was no-one else to turn to. Thankfully, helping professionals desiring to work in these areas are increasing in numbers, more and more enabling me to retire from counselling with confidence. I believe that the way we see life determines our experience of it. If this be so, then shifting perspectives makes change possible. I am deeply committed to being that safe place for equipping, empowering and cheering others on to healing, awakening and freedom, both clients and practitioners.
Cora Bilsker, RSW
For most of my life I’ve been passionate about all that is unconventional. As a counsellor who has devoted my practice to understanding the ways in which shame causes people to suffer and take that suffering out on others, I understand the value in acceptance.
Whether we believe in the concept of a counsellor being an “expert” or not, our clients see us as knowledgeable and the way in which we demonstrate we understand their experience can have a massive impact on their personal shame. This understanding has motivated me to devote my practice to working with those who identify with LGBTQ, Ethical Non-Monogamy and BDSM. Almost all of my clients have fit this description since I began Nested Heart Counselling in 2013.
The experiential knowledge I have gained through participating in these communities and working with so many clients around precisely these issues has offered me a vast amount of knowledge that I would like to pass on to you, to make your practice a safer place for your unconventional clients. You may think you don’t have any that meet this description, but when there is a sense of acceptance you might be surprised how people open up.