About Michelle & Words for Healing

Words have always been my sanctuary.

Growing up in the care system, I had no safe adults to turn to. So books became my trusted companions. My therapists, my escape, and my window into a world of possibility. They showed me that life could be different, that I was more than my circumstances, and that healing was possible.

That early relationship with the power of words shaped everything that followed.

My journey

In my early twenties, I was diagnosed with CPTSD and Fibromyalgia - the legacy of complex childhood and adulthood trauma. Later in life came diagnoses of Autism and ADHD, each one not a limitation, but another piece of the puzzle helping me understand myself more deeply.

Being naturally curious, with a spiritual and mystic thread woven through everything I do, I found myself drawn to the healing arts. I trained in counselling skills, therapeutic writing, life coaching, creative counselling, animal-assisted therapy, positive psychology, clinical hypnotherapy, and finally, bibliotherapy: the use of books, literature, and poetry as a therapeutic tool.

Bibliotherapy became my home. It brought together everything I had lived, learned, and loved.

Why Words for Healing exists

I now work as a therapist, speaker, and writer - using the power of words to help others on their own healing journeys, through my own unique lens and approach. I offer 1:1 bibliotherapy sessions, group sessions, and therapeutic book clubs for charities, businesses, and fellow therapists.

Words for Healing is the home for everything I create: books, journals, and therapeutic tools designed to help people see themselves — and their lives — differently.

Poppy's Miracle

My first book came about after my younger son was diagnosed with ADHD at just six years old. At the same time, we rescued a stray puppy in Greece, Poppy. Watching my son with Poppy, I began to see his ADHD not as a disorder, but as a collection of extraordinary gifts. It revolutionised our family, our bonds with one another, and confirmed something I had always believed: that simply by changing the way we see each other, and the words we use, we can change everything.

Poppy's Miracle is that story, written for every child who has ever been defined by a label, and for every adult who loves them.

What's coming next

I recently published a Therapeutic Reading Journal — created in collaboration with my dear friend Liza Andreou, a talented art therapist, designer, and shamanic practitioner.

Coming soon: a Grief Journal, a companion for those navigating the pain of loss. This one is close to my heart. I lost both my parents at the age of five, my grandparents from both sides of my family by the age of fourteen, and later experienced the devastating losses of miscarriage and stillbirth. I know grief intimately, and I know that the right words, at the right moment, can hold us when nothing else can.

More books are in the pipeline, each one born from lived experience and a deep belief in the transformative power of words.

Come and say hello

I'd love to connect with you. Whether you're a parent, educator, therapist, or someone on your own healing journey, you're in the right place.

Words have the power to heal. I've lived it. And I'm here to share it with you.

— Michelle 🌿