Dominic Davies

Dominic Davies (b. 3rd November 1959) is the founder and sole director of Pink Therapy. He trained as a person-centred counsellor and psychotherapist by Dave Mearns, Brian Thorne and Elke Lambers in 1988. And was supervised by Dr Bernard Ratigan, Michael Jacobs and Moira Walker who all work psychodynamically and so he would eventually come to define his theoretical orientation as integrative.

Originally trained in Residential Social Work and having specialised in working with emotionally damaged adolescents, he then went on to train as a Communtity and Youth Worker at Leicester Polytechnic (subsequently renamed and subsumed within De Montfort University.

Dominic became accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy in 1986. He worked for a decade in Student Counselling at both Leicester University and Nottingam University. He was the first person appointed by a Regional Health Authority (Mersey) to spearhead their response to HIV/AIDS in 1986. In 1987, after a study trip to see pioneering AIDS organisations in New York and San Francisco, where he was trained by Shanti in being an Emotional Support volunteer (Buddy) he developed the first training course for HIV buddies throughout Merseyside and Manchester. He also pioneered sexual outreach through taking Eroticising Safer Sex workshops to gay bars in Liverpool. This was one of the earliest examples of HIV public edication campaigns being taken into gay social life.

In 1989, Dominic moved back into Student Counselling at Nottinhgam University, where he worked for six years, before leaving to take a Senior Lectureship in Counselling and Psychotherapy from Nottingham Trent University.

In 1996 he had his first book published. Co-edited with Charles Neal Pink Therapy, was the first British textbook on working with lesbian, gay and bisexual clients.

In 1999, Dominic left his post at Nottingham Trent University for a study tour of Australia and New Zealand, travelling with his partner the artist Lee Adams. Dominic offered consultancy and training to various State and local groups on matters of sexuality, sexual identity and disabled people's sexuality, which was the subject of his second Book The Sexual Politics of Disability co-written with Tom Shakespeare and Kath Gillespie Sells.

Whilst in Australasia, Dominic completed the writing and editing (with Charles Neal) of two more books in the Pink Therapy series.

On his return to the UK in 1999, Dominic started Pink Therapy.

Since then he has continued to contribute to the field of counselling and therapy through his writing and developed the first substantive training in working with Sexual Minority clients and through running the Pink Therapy conference a biennial event and an opportunity for therapists from our the world to reflect on sexual minority therapy issues.

He has recently programmed the Sexual Minority Therapy strand for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy's annual (2006) conference.