About Christina
Dr Christina Michael is a Counselling Psychologist who works as a Senior Counselling Psychologist and Clinical Director at the Cyprus Institute for Emotion Focused Therapy.
Description
Christina is a registered Counselling Psychologist in Cyprus and the UK. She is registered with the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) and with the Cyprus Psychologist Council (reg no 18098).
Christina is experienced in working with people with a wide range of issues and problems including:grief & bereavement, depression, anxiety, panic, phobias, self-criticism, emotional numbness, work-related stress, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), trauma (PTSD), health anxiety, low self-esteem, relationship issues (individual clients only), life transitions, sleep difficulties including insomnia, self-harming behaviours, anger, suicidality and eating disorders.
Christina also offers clinical supervision to mental health professionals and masters/doctoral students.
She is fluent in Greek and English and is happy to work with clients who would feel more comfortable speaking any of these languages.
Christina’s way of working:
Christina uses a variety of process experiential therapies in her work with clients, including Emotion Focused Therapy, Focusing, Gestalt therapy, focusing, person-centred therapy, mindfulness, and pre-therapy elements.
Christina uses these therapies in a flexible, collaborative and client-centred way, tailoring her approach to suit each individual’s wishes and requirements. She believes a strong therapeutic relationship is the key to successful therapy and will work to develop this with each of her clients. She often uses diagrams, handouts, charts, and measures to support the therapy and may also require clients to undertake certain therapeutic tasks between sessions to enhance the therapeutic process.
Christina works with clients on a short-term and solution focused way or on a long-term basis.
Christina is currently based in Cyprus where she sees clients face-to-face; she also offers sessions online to clients from all over the world.
She also works with clients referred via their employer/organization.
Christina’s training and background:
Christina has a Doctorate in Counselling Psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) and Strathclyde University, and an undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Cyprus. In addition to her doctoral studies she has also undertaken specialist training in Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) by the main founders of the approach, Professor Robert Elliott and Professor Les Greenberg. Christina has been supervised and mentored by Prof Elliott since 2015.
Christina has previously worked as a higher research assistant at the department of psychology at the University of Cyprus.
Before she moved to Cyprus in 2018, she worked for more than 7 years in Scotland, with a wide range of populations and mental health difficulties in various settings (NHS, universities, and in organisations in the private sector). Christina has received training in various forms of therapy including Person Centred Therapy, Experiential Therapies, Emotion Focused Therapy, Focusing, Psychodynamic and Cognitive-Behaviour Therapies (CBT).
Before her EFT specialization she has led workshops on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Anxiety and Depression in Edinburgh. She has ran lectures at several universities, gave presentations at conferences, and ran Emotional Literacy education workshops and discussion groups at schools as well as Emotional Intelligence workshops for businesses and organisations in Scotland and Cyprus, all of which focused on educating people about mental health matters. Christina is currently an Associate Lecturer at the Doctorate of Counselling Psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University and an associate Lecturer with Cyprus-based Universities where upon request she also runs clinical skills groups for students. At CiEFT she splits her time in between seeing clients, supervising mental health professionals or facilitating EFT trainings all over the world with Prof Robert Elliott, prof. Jean Watson and others.
Christina’s memberships and affiliations
- Registered with Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) since 2014
- Accredited International Trainer & Supervisor by the International Society Emotion Focused Therapy
- Certified Clinical Supervisor – Minnesota Board of Behavioral Health and Therapy.
- Approved supervisor pursuant to Minnesota Statutes.
- Visiting Lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, Doctorate of Counselling Psychology
- Facilitator of EFT trainings at York University in Canada, Faculty of Health
- Associate supervisor at the Iranian Institute of Emotion Focused Therapy
- Appointed Panel Member of the Mental Health Tribunal (Cyprus)
- Co-founder of the Division of Counselling Psychology Cyprus
- Member the British Psychological Society since 2014
- Member of the International Society of EFT
- Health and Care Professions Council member
- Member of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration
- Member of the Empowering Emotion Focused Therapy in Europe
Christina’s publications
Christina has published in the areas of post-traumatic growth, bereavement and goals in psychotherapy. Christina has reviewed Robert’s and Les’s most recent book called Emotion-focused counselling in action which she translated in Greek.
