About Katie
Founder and developer of Optimise
Developed from the inside out
Optimise wasn't created from a formula or built around a predetermined model.
It has grown from Katie's academic and professional experience across psychology, education, coaching, research and business, but also from years of working closely with people and noticing what actually helps understanding translate into meaningful change.
Rather than beginning with a particular model or methodology, Optimise brings together ideas and approaches according to their relevance to the person and what they want to achieve.
That way of working has developed over time: through research and training, conversations and observations, building businesses and developing resources, and the experience of seeing what happens when psychological ideas meet the complexity of real life.
A broad and evolving background
Katie's academic background spans law, psychology and the psychology of education, culminating in doctoral-level training and research in psychology.
Her wider career has crossed a number of settings. She has built and run businesses, worked individually with people across a wide range of circumstances, coached and consulted, designed and delivered training, facilitated groups and conversations, and been involved in research and development.
A recurring thread has been an interest in how ideas become useful: how research, evidence and psychological understanding can be translated into something people can actually use in their lives.
That has included developing Bilateral Base, a digital resource created after Katie identified a practical need within EMDR practice and saw an opportunity for technology to address it. What began as an idea developed into a business and resource now used by EMDR practitioners around the world.
Alongside this, Katie has contributed to professional training and the development of new ways of working, continuing the same interest in how psychological knowledge can be translated into useful, practical application.
Together, those experiences have created a perspective that is deliberately broad: interested in psychology, but equally interested in the environment around us, the systems we operate within, the choices available to us and what happens when understanding is put into practice.
Why Optimise
Over time, Katie became increasingly interested in what becomes possible when psychological depth is taken beyond the boundaries in which it is traditionally used.
Psychological understanding has value far beyond addressing problems. It can help us think about how we perform, lead, relate, make decisions, respond under pressure, navigate change and decide what we want from what comes next.
Optimise grew from that idea.
It creates space to understand the wider picture without assuming there is something wrong that needs to be fixed and to use that understanding in the service of where you want to go.
Understanding what matters. Creating change that matters.