Our Team

Ivor Williams is a designer who has spent years with the ill and dying, and is dedicated to transforming our relationship to life, death and loss. He leads the end-of-life care project at the Helix Centre, and co-founded the first Helix Centre spin-out venture, Digital Care Planning. He co-leads the development of Cove, a flagship mental health app available on the NHS, with his social tech company Humane Engineering. He is a visiting lecturer at Imperial College London.

Dr. Sharon Blackie is an award-winning writer and internationally recognised teacher whose work sits at the interface of psychology, mythology and ecology. Her highly acclaimed books, courses, lectures and workshops are focused on the development of the mythic imagination, and on the relevance of myth, fairy tales and folk traditions to the personal, social and environmental problems we face today.

Sharon’s unique approach to working with the mythic imagination, fairy tales and folklore highlights the insights these traditions can offer us into authentic and meaningful ways of being which are founded on a grounding in the native wisdom traditions of the West, and above all on cultivating deep and enduring relationships to the places we inhabit.

When Kris was just 23 years old she was diagnosed with incurable secondary breast cancer. Since her initial diagnosis twelve years ago she has founded the breast cancer education charity, CoppaFeel!, obtained an honorary Doctorate from Notting Trent University for her services to women’s health, launched a festival, and published a best selling book “How To Glitter a Turd”. She advocates for holistic, individualised, patient-centred care and for normalising discussions about death and dying.

Stefana Bosse is co-founder and co-director of Alalaho, a psychedelic retreat company in The Netherlands. Through the illness and death of her mother, she discovered psychedelic medicines and became increasingly focused on the inner dimensions of healing and psycho-spiritual work. She has trained in various psychotherapeutic modalities, studied in shamanic lineages of the Americas, predominantly in the Lakota and Shipibo tradition, embarked on the Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist path, and participated in Mystery School training.

Sue Brayne takes great delight in wearing her mortality with pride. She originally trained as a state registered nurse, has an MA in the Rhetoric and Rituals of Death, and a second MA in Creative Writing. She was an honorary researcher for Dr Peter Fenwick’s five-year retrospective study into end-of-life experiences and is the author of several books on death, dying and mortality. For many years Sue worked as a psychotherapist, specialising in trauma, end of life, bereavement, and grief.  She has facilitated numerous Death Cafes in many different settings and is a speaker, workshop leader, and podcast host for Embracing Your Mortality. Her latest book Living Fully, Dying Consciously came out in 2020 and during 2021 she published two early years picture books which help young children and adults to talk together about death and dying.

Maria Papaspyrou is an integrative psychotherapist, supervisor, and systemic constellations facilitator based in Brighton, UK. She has given talks and published articles on psychedelic integration and ethics supporting the re-introduction of expanded states in psychotherapy. She is part of the Breaking Convention team and the co-founder and co-director of the Institute of Psychedelic Therapy, where she lectures and supports the development of a psychedelic aware psychotherapeutic community. She has co-edited Psychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine and the new book Psychedelics & Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Expanded States.