Over the many years of working as a Psychologist and therapist, Anna has become an astute observer of what happens inside someone’s story; understanding, reflecting, probing and re imagining what life could be and exploring new ways of being and relating.
Anna lives from a broad experience of life and she has lived in many different countries. She was born in England, trained as a Clinical Psychologist and worked in the National Health Service. She and her husband lived in Amsterdam, working with expats and addicts, and then had a few months in Bogota, Colombia working with street children. The family then went to Liberia and Anna ran a relief project to train adults working with children who were traumatized by the civil war. In 2006 Anna and Doug and their three teenagers moved to Pennsylvania, USA, where she had her own psychology practice and worked as an Adjunct Professor at Eastern University. She was a sought after motivational speaker in local private and public schools, churches and business organizations on varied topics in the years between 2008 and 2018.
She spoke on Invest in Yourself at the NEXUS Innovative Philanthropy and Social Enterprise Global Youth Summit held at the United Nations in New York in 2014. Anna also facilitated creative spiritual retreats for various church groups of different affiliations.
Anna and Doug moved to Santa Rosa Beach, in 2018.
PODCAST
During COVID their daughter Alex moved to the beach for 3 months to escape NYC! They created a podcast
Isolating with my therapy mum. You can find it on https://open.spotify.com/show/1FNvqXo5O3g4wcLMaK6ve4 or https://anchor.fm/lexi-balfour
A reviewer described it as
:..a wonderfully raw and healthy mother daughter dialogue that almost accidentally reveals the power of therapy and what its unique language sounds like when it it is applied to relationships.
QUALIFICATIONS
Anna’s is a UK Chartered Psychologist, AFBPsS (Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society,) and was a Licensed Professional Counselor in PA. She also worked as an Advanced Certified Schema Therapist, a member of the ISST (International Schema Society).
As for ‘artist credentials’ - she has taken a few classes, sold a few pieces, talked in public places about her story of creating - and has a desire to just ‘get it out’, whatever is buzzing around inside!