Optima Health Services

Optima Health Services I'm Jo Oxley, a BACP Accredited Psychotherapist/Counsellor with over a decade of experience.

Empowering Counsellors and Psychotherapists with Award Winning CPCAB Level 5 and Level 7 ‘Attachment Training’ | CPD Attachment Based Retreats for Therapists | Couples Therapy Retreats to Pause, Reflect and Reconnect I specialise in Attachment Psychotherapy, addressing relational issues, postnatal depression, and more. Offering both individual and couples counselling, I provide a safe, confidentia

l space for your healing journey. Supporting your mental well-being with compassionate and professional care. 🌟

Specialising in individual and couples counselling, including attachment therapy, postnatal depression, and relational challenges. 🌿
BACP Accredited Psychotherapist with over 10 years of experience. 💬

📞 07535 295 556 | ✉️ [email protected]
💻 www.optimahealthservices.co.uk

Your journey to healing starts here. 💙

What an amazing evening with Alix and Georgina.Together, we explored such an important question:How do we find our place...
09/06/2026

What an amazing evening with Alix and Georgina.

Together, we explored such an important question:
How do we find our places of safety in an unsafe world — and how do we support others to do the same?

The evening offered rich and thoughtful reflections on attachment, co-regulation, belonging, repair, play, emotional availability, and the importance of understanding children and young people in context rather than in isolation.

One of the powerful reminders was that safety is not just a physical place. It is often found in relationships through attunement, repair, emotional holding, and not having to face difficult feelings alone.

Thank you to everyone who joined us and contributed to such a meaningful evening.

If you would like access to the recording, please click the link in the comments.

Bonus episode tonight at 7PM.This week’s episode is a little different from our usual conversations.Kiah joins Darren as...
09/06/2026

Bonus episode tonight at 7PM.

This week’s episode is a little different from our usual conversations.

Kiah joins Darren as a parent of two young children, reflecting honestly on what it can feel like to listen to attachment theory while raising children in real life.

The episode looks at parenting guilt, screen time, dinner-time struggles, social media pressure and the idea of being “good enough”.

One of the central themes is attachment parenting repair: what happens when we get something wrong, notice it, and find our way back into connection.

Because parents do not need to get it right all the time.

Repair matters.

In this conversation, Kiah and Darren talk about:

good enough parenting
screen time and guilt
attachment styles and parenting
why children need connection, not perfection
how small moments of repair build safety
the ABC model for understanding behaviour

This episode may be helpful for parents, therapists, counsellors, psychologists and anyone interested in attachment theory and relationships.

🎧 Available from 7PM
📄 CPD reflection available with the episode

We have some really lovely news to share.We’ve been named Therapy Training Provider of the Year in the Prestige Awards.A...
08/06/2026

We have some really lovely news to share.

We’ve been named Therapy Training Provider of the Year in the Prestige Awards.

And honestly, this one took us a little by surprise. We didn’t apply for it, so to be shortlisted and then chosen as the winner feels especially meaningful.

From what we understand, the decision was based on publicly available information — our website, reviews, testimonials, the work we do, and the contribution we’ve made to the wider therapeutic community. That feels important, because it means the recognition has come from the work itself.

And really, this belongs to the whole team.

It belongs to the people who teach, supervise, support students, answer the anxious emails, keep things running behind the scenes, hold the training spaces with care, and bring so much heart and integrity to the work.

It belongs to our therapists, tutors, supervisors, students, graduates, and everyone who has helped shape what we do.

Our work has always been about more than delivering courses. It is about training practitioners with depth, compassion, relational awareness, and real respect for the people they will go on to sit with. When that is done well, it ripples out far beyond the training room — into therapy rooms, families, relationships and communities.

That is the bit that matters most.

Awards are lovely, of course they are. We may still be doing that very British thing of saying, “Are you sure?” while quietly smiling into a cup of tea. But we are also allowing ourselves to pause and feel proud.

So, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been part of this journey.

Therapy Training Provider of the Year.

What a privilege.

It’s not too late to join us tonight at 7pm.Tonight, we’re going live with Alix Hearn to talk about her new book, Places...
08/06/2026

It’s not too late to join us tonight at 7pm.

Tonight, we’re going live with Alix Hearn to talk about her new book, Places of Safety: How Attachment Shapes Our Parenting.

Sign up via the link in comments/bio

We’d love you to join us for Holding Minds in Mind: Attachment & Mentalisation in the Therapy Room with one of our wonde...
04/06/2026

We’d love you to join us for Holding Minds in Mind: Attachment & Mentalisation in the Therapy Room with one of our wonderful tutors, Joanne Kay.

This gentle, practical lunchtime workshop explores how mentalisation develops in attachment relationships, why it can collapse when emotions run high, and what therapists can do to help clients begin to make sense of themselves and others again.

Monday 8 June 2026
1–2pm
Hosted by Online Events
Live on Zoom | Recording available
Self-select fee - guide price £20

Perfect for counsellors, psychotherapists, trainees and anyone working relationally with attachment, trauma, loss or emotional dysregulation.

Come along, support Joanne, and enjoy a thoughtful hour of learning.

To book, head to the Online Events website - link in comments.

04/06/2026

I remember the first time I really understood that attachment theory was not there to make me sound clever.

It was not in a lecture.
Not in a book either.

It was sitting opposite someone who kept saying, “I’m fine,” while their face, their hands, their whole body seemed to be saying something else entirely.

Almost begging not to be noticed.

And I remember thinking, oh… this is what we are listening for.

Not the perfect words.
Not the neat version.
Not the story someone has practised so they can get through it without falling apart.

The other story.

The one underneath.

The one the body tells before the mouth catches up.

There is a quote from Alice Miller that has stayed with me for years:

“The way we were treated as small children is the way we treat ourselves.”

I think about that line a lot.

With clients, yes.
But also in ordinary life.
In myself, if I’m honest.

I think of it when someone says sorry for crying.

When someone laughs straight after saying something painful, as though they need to make their pain easier for everyone else to hold.

When someone expects disappointment before a word has even been spoken.

When someone cannot ask for comfort without feeling ashamed.

Too needy.
Too much.
A burden.

And sometimes I find myself wondering:

Who taught you that?

Who taught you to hide sadness before anyone had the chance to meet it kindly?

Who made needing people feel dangerous?

Who left you alone so often that coping became less of a skill and more of an identity?

Who made you believe you had to turn on yourself first?

Just to get there before anyone else did.

That is where attachment theory becomes real for me.

Not a label.
Not a tidy explanation.
Not something to make us sound impressive in a room full of other therapists.

It is a way of listening.

A way of sitting beside someone and remembering there may be a younger part of them still trying, very hard, to stay safe.

Because so much of what gets called difficult behaviour was once protection.

The shutting down.
The clinging.
The pleasing.
The pushing away.
The pretending not to care.

All of it had a job once.

Maybe not a healthy one.
Maybe not one that works now.
But once, somewhere, it helped.

And when we remember that, something in us softens.

Not in a woolly way.

In a human way.

We stop rushing to ask, “What is wrong with you?”

And we begin to wonder what they had to carry, quietly, for far too long.

Maybe healing begins there.

Not when we fix the strategy.

But when someone finally hears the story underneath it.

It’s not too late to book your place at our therapist retreat.You can still join us for the full retreat, or come for ju...
03/06/2026

It’s not too late to book your place at our therapist retreat.

You can still join us for the full retreat, or come for just one day - choosing the day that feels most relevant to you, your practice, and what you need right now.

The retreat is for therapists, counsellors and psychotherapists who want space to step away from client work, admin, responsibility, and all the holding that comes with this profession.

There will be workshops, reflection, lunch included for individual day attendees, and time to think properly with people who understand the work.

Not rushed. Not overpacked. Not another CPD tick-box.

Just thoughtful professional development that gives you something useful to take back into your practice.

To see what’s included, request the updated brochure through the link in the comments or book through the link on our website.

Supervision is rarely just three tidy columns.In The Functional Model Revisited: An Attachment-Informed Approach to Supe...
02/06/2026

Supervision is rarely just three tidy columns.

In The Functional Model Revisited: An Attachment-Informed Approach to Supervision, Uruj Anjum and Georgina Sturmer revisit the formative, normative and restorative functions of supervision, and explore what happens when we add an attachment lens.

The workshop considers supervision as a secure base and safe haven, looking at how anxious and avoidant patterns can shape the way supervisees receive challenge, support and accountability. It also explores how power, culture and identity affect what feels safe to say in the supervision room.

Available now on the CPD Hub.

Each purchase includes:
🎥 On-demand workshop recording
📄 CPD certificate
📝 Reflection pack

A reflective workshop for supervisors, supervisees and therapists wanting to deepen their understanding of supervision as a relational and attachment-informed process.

This beautiful line is from Alix Hearn’s new book, Places of Safety: How Attachment Shapes Our Parenting.It is an excell...
01/06/2026

This beautiful line is from Alix Hearn’s new book, Places of Safety: How Attachment Shapes Our Parenting.

It is an excellent book for anyone interested in attachment, parenting, early relationships, and the ways our own histories can show up in how we parent, care, connect, protect, and sometimes react.

Alix writes with warmth and real depth. It does not feel distant or overly academic. It feels like a book that understands the complexity of being human.

We’re also really pleased to be connecting with Karnac Books for this. Karnac Books is a specialist home for books on psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, counselling, attachment and related fields, offering a large collection of professional and clinical titles for therapists, students and readers who want proper depth.

Georgina will be hosting our next Optima Presents event with Alix, where they’ll be talking about the book, attachment, parenting, and what it means to create places of safety - for children, families, and ourselves too.

Join us Monday, 8th June, 7 PM- 8 PM, by signing up using the link in the comments.

Address

High Wycombe

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 6:30pm
Tuesday 8am - 6:30pm
Wednesday 8am - 6:30pm
Thursday 8am - 6:30pm

Telephone

+447535295556

Website

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