Ali Bushell – Lead Diploma Tutor

Ali Bushell is a Lead Tutor on The Diploma in Integrative Counselling at The Awareness Centre Training School. He has worked as a therapist in private practice for more than 5 years and is also a qualified supervisor as of 2025. Additionally, he holds a Level 1 Certificate in Internal Family Systems Therapy as issued by the IFS institute.

Ali’s main experience post-qualification has been working in private practice with specialisms including: working with neuro-atypical individuals, men and masculinity, queer individuals and understanding living within a heteronormative world, non-monogamous individuals and relationships. He uses Internal Family Systems (IFS) to help people explore and heal from their trauma to create harmonious and balanced systems of relation with the outside world.

Ali’s approach as a tutor is to ensure that the theory is clearly and comprehensively linked to the skills needed to carry out the work so that students don’t get lost in the theory and feel unsure of what to actually do in the room. He is clear that students need to know how to fly solo when they are doing the work with their clients and his focus is about making sure they feel comfortable and equipped to do that.

He understands that students are still in the learning phase and that they will do things that they need to learn from, and it is with understanding and a clear focus on how to see these as learning experiences that he attempts to guide students to a place of growth and integration of their skills into their practice. Ali believes strongly that the learning environment should feel safe, comfortable, but also fun and playful so that the process of engaging with some hard topics doesn’t have to feel heavy or challenging at all times.