Rose C Jiggens

My Story, Training & Experience

Hello, I’m Rose!

I’m Rose C Jiggens, a somatic and Family Constellations therapist based in Hackney, East London, working with individuals and groups in person and online.

I’ve been working with people individually and in groups since 2008. My approach draws on different therapeutic traditions and many years of experiential learning. I work at the interface of words, the nervous system, embodied experience and systemic enquiry.

I’m an Accredited Senior Member of the ACCPH, and my practice is supported by regular supervision and ongoing professional development. My route into this work hasn’t been particularly conventional. It began in the arts and has taken me through many years of embodied exploration, teaching, groupwork and therapeutic training.

What follows is a little of that journey, alongside a more detailed account of my training and professional experience.

Page Overview

This page takes around 8 minutes to read and covers:

My professional journey

Qualifications and training

Professional experience and getting started

How I came to this work – Art, creativity and the unknown

Looking back, I can see some consistent threads running through my professional journey: curiosity about what makes us who we are, a fascination with the relationship between body and mind, and a love of working creatively with people.

My professional journey began in the arts. In 1996, I returned to education as a mature student, going on to complete a first-class BA (Hons) in Fine Art and an MFA with Distinction. I worked as an artist, exhibiting, undertaking commissions and residencies, and teaching in universities and colleges.

Art taught me something I still draw upon every day: how to work with uncertainty. Making something new often involves stepping into the unknown, experimenting, getting things wrong, and discovering possibilities that couldn’t have been planned in advance.

I also learned a great deal about collaboration and the relationship between our inner worlds and the world around us. Towards the end of my active art career, I became increasingly interested in live, embodied art practices, creating projects that invited ‘viewers’ to become participants through their own embodied experience.

An apprenticeship in embodied experience

My growing interest in embodied experience wasn’t confined to my artwork. I was also becoming fascinated by questions about intimacy, sexuality, spirituality and the relationship between body and mind. And rather than just reading about these things, I wanted to explore them through direct experience.

From the early 2000s, I threw myself into what became an extensive (and oftentimes unconventional) experiential education in neo-tantra, Bioenergetics, breathwork and other body-based approaches. Much of this learning took place in intensive residential workshops, long-term groups and supervised practice. I was as interested in what happened between people as in what happened within us individually.

From 2008 to 2019, I developed my own practice, Tantra4Tigers, working with individuals and couples, and facilitating workshops. I also taught alongside colleagues and helped establish a live-work community where sharing circles, embodied exploration (touch, sensual, erotic) and learning to live and work together were part of everyday life.

It was a rich and sometimes challenging education in human relationships. I learned a great deal about intimacy, vulnerability, power, boundaries and what can happen when people step outside familiar roles and expectations. Not all of that learning came from things going according to plan.

My work has changed considerably since those years, but they remain an important part of my professional formation.

Towards somatic and systemic therapy

Around 2017, I began feeling drawn towards a wider therapeutic practice. My own exploration of family history had brought me into contact with stories of migration, survival, loss and complicated relationships across generations. This sparked an interest in how the experiences of our ancestors – and the major events that they lived through – continue to influence us collectively and individually.

I trained in Family Constellations alongside a two-year training in Rebirthing and Integrative Breathwork, completing both in 2018. Together, these approaches opened new possibilities for exploring personal experience through both the body and the relationships and systems that influence our lives. In 2018, I established True Self Systems, bringing these strands of work together under a new name and an evolving therapeutic framework.

An evolving therapeutic practice

Since establishing True Self Systems, my work has continued to evolve, shaped by further training, my own experiences, and the people I’ve worked alongside.

Training in Transforming Touch®, EMDR and trauma-sensitive approaches has deepened my understanding of how we respond to difficult experiences, how our nervous systems adapt, and the importance of consent, pacing and choice within therapeutic relationships. My earlier training in the Wheel of Consent® has also become an increasingly important influence on how I work, extending far beyond its original context of touch and intimacy.

Alongside offering individual therapy, groups have remained a significant part of my personal and professional life. I’ve helped establish and sustain a number of long-term peer groups, where I’ve experienced the value of mutual support, shared learning and the sometimes messy business of being in relationship with one another. These experiences have deepened my understanding of how trust develops over time, including through differences, misunderstandings and opportunities for repair.

Facilitating therapeutic groups is a different kind of responsibility, but one informed by these experiences. I’m committed to groupwork both because of what becomes possible when people explore their experiences together, and because groups can make therapeutic work more financially accessible.

I don’t consider my professional education finished. My practice continues to develop through supervision, further study, collaboration and, importantly, what I learn through working with the people who come to see me.

Qualifications and Professional Training – Therapeutic Qualifications

Certified Family & Systemic Constellations Practitioner. Robert Rowland Smith and Nicola Dunn, 2018.
Certified Integrative Breathwork Practitioner. First Breath – Nathalia Westacott, 2018.
Certified Transforming Touch® Practitioner. Stephen J. Terrell and Ellen Keating, 2021.
EMDR in Therapy and Coaching. EMDR Centre London, 2023.

Combined professional training: 605.5 hours, including supervised breathwork practice.

Other Substantial Training and CPD

The Wheel of Consent®. 108 hours of training with Betty Martin and the School of Consent, 2015–2021, including practitioner and group facilitation training.

Therapeutic Group Facilitation. Introduction to Therapeutic Groupwork and Building Blocks: Intermediate Course in Group Facilitation, North London Group Therapy, with Tim Foskett. 60 contact hours, alongside substantial additional reading and independent study. Training covered group formation, interpersonal process, dialogue, power and difference, conflict, therapeutic interventions and group endings.

Supervision Training. The Art of Supervision: The Framework of Supervision and Group Supervision, with Dr Val Huet, Oxford College of Arts & Therapies, 2025. 9.5 hours.

Other Continuing Professional Development

My ongoing professional development includes live and recorded courses, workshops and independent study, with particular interests in trauma, attachment, somatic approaches, neurodivergence, group process, systemic enquiry and social justice. Significant influences on my continuing learning include Bonnie Badenoch, Peter Levine, Pat Ogden and Bessel van der Kolk. My CPD has also included further Transforming Touch® training, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, trauma and memory, and socially aware approaches to therapeutic practice.

Foundational Training and Practice

2003–2018. Extensive training and sustained practice in embodied, relational, contemplative and spiritual approaches.

John Hawken, The Paths of Transformation: approximately 1,300 hours of training and mentorship including Bioenergetics, character structures, tantra, Dark Eros and ongoing membership of his Shamanic Lodge (2010–2018).

Other significant teachers and influences from this period include Leora Lightwoman, Deborah Anapol, Kenneth Ray Stubbs, Shakti Malan, Greg Branson and Robin Baldock. Long-term engagement with Zen meditation through practice and residential retreats.

Academic Qualifications

2002 – Master of Fine Art (MFA), Newcastle University. Distinction.
2000 – BA (Hons) Fine Art, University of Wolverhampton. First Class Honours.

Professional Experience, Membership Body and Insurance

Professional Practice

I’ve worked individually and with groups since 2008, initially through Tantra4Tigers and, since 2018, through True Self Systems. Since 2018 (and as of late 2026) my therapeutic practice has included more than 3,100 hours of one-to-one client work undertaken with regular professional supervision, alongside more than 300 hours of facilitated groupwork and workshops.

Professional Membership, Accreditation and Insurance

I am an Accredited Senior Member, ACCPH, comply with its Code of Conduct and Complaints Procedures. My practice is insured (Professional Indemnity and Public Liability) with BGI.

Supervision and Reflective Practice

I undertake ongoing individual supervision with DK Green, specialist supervision as needed (Transforming Touch® EMDR) and peer supervision with a longstanding group of fellow practitioners. These different supervisory and reflective spaces support me in considering clinical decisions, professional boundaries, therapeutic relationships, and my continuing development as a therapist.

Working with me

If you’re considering working with me, you can read more about my approach to 1-to-1 Somatic and Family Constellations Therapy by following this link. You’ll also find information about 1-to-1 session formats, fees, availability and how to get started on my Bookings, Hours and Fees page.

If you are interested in Family Constellations groups, you can find information about online groups and in-person groups in London UK at these links.

You’re welcome to get in touch if you’d like to explore whether my work might be a good fit for you. Scroll down to the purple buttons below, to send me an email or complete an individual session enquiry form.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Rose C Jiggens

(pronouns: they / them)