Jeff Leonardi

After counselling training at Aston in Birmigham (1978 - 1979), I worked as a counsellor, supervisor and trainer for ten years, during which time I also pursued, or was pursued by, training for ordination as a priest in the Church of England. I served as a parish priest in Cumbria from 1988- 1997 and was then appointed Bishop's Adviser for Pastoral Care and Counselling, and Associate Minister in a cluster of rural parishes in the Lichfield Diocese in Staffordshire. In 2009 I was awarded a doctorate, 'Partners or Adversaries: Christianity and the Person-Centred Approach ' by the University of East Anglia. In 2010 PCCS Books published a collection of papers which I edited and contributed to: ‘The Human Being Fully Alive: writings in celebration of Brian Thorne’. I retired from full-time work in 2014 and now live in West Wales, continuing as a Counsellor, Supervisor and Trainer in private practice, and with Licence to Officiate as Priest. In 2015 I became an Honorary Research Fellow of the Religious Experience Research Centre of the University of Wales Trinity St David at Lampeter, where my main focus of research is relational spirituality in the therapeutic context.