Eight Tensions ® Certified Coaches
paula
ferguson
Coaching psychologist, academic, consultant and supervisor.
paula ferguson
Paula is certified Eight Tensions® coach, a recovery coach, and a certified stress management and performance coach.
Academically, she holds an MSc in the Psychology of Mental Health and Wellbeing, alongside a postgraduate diploma in Coaching Psychology, and she is currently working towards Chartership with the BPS Division of Coaching Psychology as a Coaching Psychologist.
Her practice is fundamentally rooted at the intersection of cutting-edge research and the sometimes messy, confusing, and adventurous reality of everyday life.
Over the past 25 years, Paula has had the privilege of working across a variety of behavioural health organisations, both in the UK and internationally. This professional breadth has given her a rich, systemic understanding of how individuals and systems navigate dynamic, real-time change. As an advocate and leading voice in recovery coaching, her work is deeply informed by her own long-term recovery, which she integrates carefully with ethical rigour, specialist training, and psychologically informed, evidence-based frameworks. By blending coaching psychology, recovery science, and existential approaches, she aims to offer a mature, grounded, and powerfully human way of working with people navigating addiction, recovery, and major life transitions.
Relational connection is at the heart of her practice. Paula’s style is practical, down-to-earth, and deeply collaborative, focusing on what is actually happening in your life right now. She strives to offer a clear, supportive space where we can think things through together, name the possibilities you most want in life, and consider meaningful ways forward.
Alongside one-to-one work, Paula facilitates group coaching, drawing on the profound power of shared learning, especially around health, wellbeing, and behaviour change. She intentionally creates group environments where clients can feel less isolated in their challenges, learn from one another’s insights, and practice new ways of responding within a safe, psychologically contained setting. Using the Eight Tensions® Framework as a practical backdrop rather than a rigid method, she helps both individuals and groups make sense of their patterns and translate those insights into small, manageable changes that honour their unique values and circumstances.
Ultimately, as a Coaching Psychologist, a lifelong learner and an optimist by choice, Paula is driven by a straightforward, wholehearted aim: to make the science of wellbeing accessible, actionable and genuinely meaningful in people’s lives. She is committed to translating research, theory and evidence-based practice into practical resources that people can realistically use and benefit from, particularly when life is at its most complex and challenging.
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