Josephine Cropper

Josephine has 17 years experience as a Professional registered psychotherapist. She is very clear that psychotherapy is her vocation and clients and colleagues always say her passion shines through. Energy and determination are key factors as she undertakes all her tasks and projects with enthusiasm and has a down to earth approach.She is fully accredited. A highly tuned sense of intuition has helped refine her insight into people and their ways of thinking. She describes her first marriage as an “in your face experience”, her husband having very severe mental health issues. This gave her experience which was to prove invaluable later in her role as a counsellor and therapist. Josephine met her current husband Pete 20 years ago and shortly after this realised that professionally she was “in the wrong place”. She then took the bold decision to retrain as a psychotherapist and undertook long training to ensure she was fully qualified, studying for an MSc in psychotherapy. At first she was still employed full time in textiles, studying every day before she went to work.   During this time she started to build up her own practice whilst also working at a mental health charity and women's refuge dealing with domestic violence. She stayed at the mental health charity, later becoming a board member. Josephine was born in Atherton, Lancashire and grew up in a busy household being one of eight children. After primary school in Atherton she attended Mount St Joseph Convent School in Bolton. At 18 she started work in the textile industry dealing with salaries and accounts. Responsibility came early when, after only six months employment, her superior was off sick for three months. Of course, people still wanted to be paid, and she became responsible for 500 salaries. An unusual arrangement meant she also paid the MD! As the textile industry changed she moved to planning for key accounts and she was given responsibility for a budget of £25m thanks to her business studies qualification. This involved a large customer budget and major customer accounts, and she enjoyed such perks as being flown to Milan and back, luckily! in a private jet. Her innate ability to organise was a great help in this post. Her passion for people never waned and she frequently undertook voluntary work for a variety of organisations. She is also a highly experienced mediator helping to solve disputes both in the workplace and domestically, and this is a role which she still very much enjoys.