The Orchid Telephone Counselling Team

Background

Orchid is proud to work with a dynamic team of experienced  counsellors who can provide people affected by penile or testicular cancer with vital emotional support. The team work closely with the Orchid Nurse Specialists to ensure that the service that Orchid offers provides the highest level of support.

Jane Fior

Jane Fior is a psychotherapist who for the last thirty years has specialised in working with cancer patients and those close to them in organisational settings and in private practice. She is a passionate believer in the need for emotional support for people facing a cancer diagnosis, treatment and its aftermath, and in 2014 helped Orchid establish its pilot telephone counselling service. This is now an important area of support that the charity is able to offer and she is proud to act as co-ordinator for the Orchid counselling team.

Liz Fowles

Liz has been a BACP registered and accredited counselling practitioner since 1999 and is one of the few counsellors to have gained accreditation status from the British Infertility Counselling Association (BICA).  Liz is currently working towards Senior Accreditation status with BICA (SAMBICA). Liz also won a Millennium award in 1999/2000 enabling her to research the importance of  counselling provision for individuals and couples experiencing trauma and loss in pregnancy.

Her past experience includes working as a substance misuse counselling practitioner for a local addiction charity (NECA) from 2006 to 2013, and as a locum practitioner to help reduce waiting lists within the NHS in mental health services.  Since 2013 she has worked for the NHS as a counselling practitioner at a Fertility Clinic and an Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Midwifery unit.

Liz has a successful private practice working with patients worldwide and is part of the Petal’s specialist counselling service.

Liz has worked with Orchid since 2021 counselling men who have been diagnosed with testicular and penile cancer and has also supported NHS Consultants dealing with individuals suffering trauma following the Covid pandemic.

Aggie McPake

Agnes McPake (Aggie) is a Senior Accredited COSRT (College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists). After many years of working as a staff nurse in a busy coronary care unit Aggie felt that patients would benefit from a therapeutic approach, as many had suffered trauma and loss related to their medical condition.

Aggie holds a Diploma in Counselling (New College Lanarkshire), Diploma level 9 in Couple Counselling (Napier University), Post Graduate Diploma Relationships and Psychosexual Therapy (Doncaster College) and Diploma level 5 Working with Sex Addiction: Individual and Couples (Counselling Psychotherapy Central Award Body) and takes a psychodynamic approach to counselling. This includes building on skills and development created from trauma, loss, relationship and intimacy work to provide an increased level of care and awareness of cancer.

Aggie has her own counselling practice based in the centre of Glasgow.

I feel privileged to use my experience, knowledge and skills to help cancer patients and their partner’s throughout their Orchid journey. 

Jonathan Kilcourse

Jonathan has over twenty years experience of counselling and his practice focuses on the development of an individuals intellectual, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. As an integrative counsellor he draws on a number of theoretical models

Both the development of the therapeutic relationship and healing ethos form the core foundations of my approach and offers clients a baseline of safety, from which to explore their experiences with both consideration and openness.

Julia Pugh

Julia is a psychosexual and relationship therapist with a passion to support people with a broad range of relationship and psychosexual concerns. Through her work in cancer care, originally as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, Julia quickly became aware of the significant unmet need for patients to get support with the impact of their cancer diagnosis and treatment on their sexual wellbeing and went on to become a dual trained Psychosexual Therapist, a Member of the Institute of Psychosexual Medicine (IPM) and a qualified Member of the College of Sexual and Relationships Therapy (COSRT) and is also a Member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).
Julia is an experienced practitioner, working in NHS and private health care, and Charities. In her role as therapist, Julia specialises in supporting people and couples affected by cancer and other long term health conditions. Julia uses a diverse range of tools in therapy with individuals and couples including psychodynamic, psychoanalytical and behavioural approaches.