Profile for Debbie Featherstone
Diploma in Hearing Therapy, DHP(NC), MNRHP, MNSHP, RCCP
Director
Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy Ltd
Private Practice:
Clitheroe Therapies
3 Castlegate
Clitheroe
Lancashire BB7 1AZ
I have been Head of Hearing Therapy Services in East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust from 2001 to 2010, with responsibility for specialist rehabilitative service provision for tinnitus, hyperacusis, and hearing loss. Prior to moving to Lancashire, I was based in Birmingham at a specialist regional centre for deafened people from 1996 - 2001, and before that I worked in Essex.
I am a qualified and registered Psychotherapist, Hypnotherapist and Hearing Therapy practitioner,and I specialise in the delivery of therapy for tinnitus, hearing loss, hyperacusis, acoustic shock injury, anxiety disorders including OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), PTSD (Post Trauma Stress Disorder), GAD (General Anxiety Disorder) and depression.
It was my work with tinnitus patients that led me to undertake additional training as a psychotherapist. Whilst working in Birmingham, we had a psychologist of the team who could help our patients when they had severe anxiety or depression. When I arrived in Lancashire, however, I had no one with those skills and the necessary knowledge about tinnitus to refer patients that needed those skills to. Hence I took on a 3 year Post Graduate Diploma in Psychotherapy and Hypnotherapy.
Following my 17 year career as a Hearing Therapist in the NHS, I took early retirement from the NHS (28 May 2010) to pursue myr interests in greater depth - specifically in helping those with distressing tinnitus and also to undertake more in depth work as a Psychotherapist with people who have depression and/or anxiety disorders than my Hearing Therapy role in the NHS allowed the time for.
I am currently studying towards an MSc in Psychotherapy with the University of Sheffield.
