My name is Nichola Doyle MA Ed, MBACP, Snr Accredited ACCPH, MNCIP
I founded UK Therapy Guild because I know, from the inside out, what it feels like to need good support and not find it. Everything we do here grows from that experience. I want to share a little of my story with you, because I think it matters that you understand the person behind this organisation, and the values that shape every decision we make.
Growing Up in Anfield
I was born in Anfield, Liverpool, in 1974. My earliest years were marked by instability. Domestic violence and untreated mental health difficulties fractured my parents' marriage, and the consequences for me and my younger brother Philip were profound. When I was around two years old, my mother left one evening for work and did not come back. Our neighbours heard us crying and called social services.
Philip and I were placed together with the same foster family, but when I later moved to live with my paternal grandparents, the law at the time meant Philip could not come with me. We were separated. I was seven before social services arranged any contact visits, and those broke down after just two years. I was 21 before I heard his voice again.
I picked up the phone and the person on the other end said 'it's Philip, don't put the phone down.'
We became so close. He was a huge part of my life and I loved him very much. When Philip died in 2014 from a brain haemorrhage at just 40 years old, it broke me open in a way I had never experienced before. That loss became the turning point that eventually led me here.
My Grandad, Jim, and the Family I Built
Living with my nan and grandad brought something I had been missing: safety. My grandad became my protector and my closest companion. He was my anchor in an uncertain world, and I think about him often when I consider what it truly means to hold someone through difficulty. That is exactly what I try to build into every part of how we work at UK Therapy Guild.
At 15, I met Jim, who has been my partner ever since. We became engaged at 19. Before our wedding I contacted the Salvation Army tracing service to find my mother and discovered she was living just ten minutes away in Liverpool. We reunited. I invited her to the wedding. And within two weeks of the ceremony, my grandad passed away. The emotional fallout from all of that took years to process, and it is a large part of what drew me so deeply into psychodynamic and attachment theory when I eventually trained as a counsellor.
Jim has been my rock through everything. Our daughters Erin and Charley have both followed this path too. Erin is now a fully qualified counsellor and hypnotherapist and is part of our teaching team. Charley is completing her first year of training. Jim plans to start the course next year himself.
Since I started the counselling journey, my whole family has become interested. I've encouraged a bit of a tribe.
Why I Became a Counsellor
Before all of this, I spent years as a primary school teacher, eventually reaching Senior Leadership. I loved working with children. But when Philip died, I sought counselling through the NHS and week after week I was given a different counsellor. I was expected to retell my story from the beginning each time, reliving it without ever being able to move forward with someone who actually knew me.
I just thought, God, this is a terrible service to deliver to people, and I wanted to do better than that. So that was my interest in counselling.
I began training with what was then the United Kingdom Association of Integrative Therapy. I quickly came to understand why the integrative model was so different from anything I had experienced as a client. Person-centred therapy alone had left me feeling like a can of beans opened, half tipped out and left in the fridge. The integrative approach gave me a toolkit: a way to not only open difficult experiences, but to safely work through them.
In 2022, the Academy's founder invited me to take over the organisation. I spent two years in that transition, and in 2025 I rebranded it as UK Therapy Guild. Building the course I wish I had found all those years ago is the most purposeful thing I have ever done.
The Course I Wish I Had Found
Everything about UK Therapy Guild is designed around the experience I wanted as a student and never had as a client. Our Level 5 Dual Diploma in Integrative Counselling and Clinical Hypnotherapy runs over two years, part-time, on Saturdays. It is academically rigorous and professionally accredited, but above all it is human. We hold our students. We know their names, their stories, and we are invested in their growth from day one.
Alongside the training academy we also run the UK Therapy Guild Counselling Service, offering high-quality integrative counselling and clinical hypnotherapy to people in our community who might otherwise struggle to access it. Sessions are delivered by our own highly trained counsellors, people I have personally taught and mentored, as they work toward their 100 required client hours.
It is another vital part of our mission. The ripple effect goes both ways: our students grow into confident practitioners, and real people in Liverpool get the support they deserve.
The legacy is no longer one of trauma. It is one of healing.
My Qualifications and Memberships
I hold qualifications across education, counselling, hypnotherapy, and clinical supervision, and I am a registered member of the sector's leading professional bodies.
If You Feel Called to This Work, I Would Love to Hear From You
My message to my younger self would be: if you always trust in yourself and believe there is better, you will find it. I built this Guild for people who are ready to find their better. Come and join us.