I know what it feels like to pretend everything is fine.
For a large part of my life, I was the master pretender.
On the outside, I was the guy who always had it together: sociable, driven, getting on with things. On the inside, it was a completely different story. I battled mental health struggles, panic disorder and depression for years. I had panic attacks so severe that a long haul flight became eight hours of sheer terror. I went through periods where I genuinely didn't know how to ask for help, or whether help even existed.
There was a serious health scare that could have taken my life, and I thought I'd dealt with it. I hadn't. I'd just buried it deeper.
I spent years numbing things out. Putting on an act. Getting through things rather than actually living them. The people around me had no idea. That's how good I'd become at hiding it.
What changed everything wasn't a book, a motivational speaker or a weekend course. It was finding the right support: real, practical help that got to the root of what was actually going on. It changed my life so profoundly that I trained as a therapist to be able to do the same for others.
I've now worked with thousands of people. And the thing I hear most often, from managers, from HR directors, from frontline workers, is the same thing I felt for years.
That gap, between knowing something is wrong and knowing what to do, is exactly what Piece of Mind Training was built to close.
We didn't build a training company. We built a team.
Every person at Piece of Mind Training brings something the others don't. A background in emergency response. A career in education. A personal experience of loss. A depth of therapeutic knowledge that only comes from years in the room with people who are really struggling.
We're not generalists who learned this from a manual. We're people who've lived it, studied it and dedicated our professional lives to it. And we believe that makes every training session we deliver genuinely different.
Meet the team
Five people. Five completely different backgrounds. One shared reason for being here.
Andy Griffiths
Andy is a practising therapist, clinical hypnotherapist and the founder of Piece of Mind Training. He's spent over a decade working with clients across anxiety, trauma, panic disorder and complex mental health presentations, not as a theorist, but as someone who has experienced many of these challenges himself.
As a trainer, Andy is known for his directness, his warmth and his ability to make people feel genuinely seen. He doesn't stand behind a slide deck and talk at people. He brings the subject into the room.
Ann Stewart
Ann has spent her career helping people make sense of the things that are weighing on them, and finding a way forward when everything feels tough. A qualified teacher, certified hypnotherapist, coach and First Aid for Mental Health practitioner, she brings together an understanding of how people learn with a deep, practical knowledge of how people struggle.
She still works directly with adults and young people every week, supporting those experiencing anxiety, low confidence, emotional distress and the kind of quiet difficulties that don't always have a name but make everyday life feel impossibly hard.
At Piece of Mind Training, Ann leads on training quality and consistency, making sure that what we promise is what every learner experiences, every time.
Iona Russell
Iona has spent more than twenty years working at the intersection of human potential and real-world impact, across psychology, coaching, education, broadcasting, the charitable sector and social policy, in both the UK and the USA. She is a Master Positive Psychology Coach and twice bestselling author who has supported hundreds of people through coaching qualifications.
What drives her commitment to mental health work goes deeper than her professional background. She lost her brother to suicide. That experience, and everything it taught her about the gap between what people are going through and the support available to them, shapes everything she brings to Piece of Mind Training.
At Piece of Mind, Iona leads our partnerships, builds community impact and drives our growth across Scotland and beyond.
David Gowans
Twenty-three years on the frontline of emergency services, first as a police officer, now as an HCPC-registered practising paramedic. David hasn't studied stress, trauma and burnout from a distance. He's carried them, in uniform, responding to people at the absolute worst moments of their lives. He understands the culture that makes asking for help feel like the hardest thing in the world, because he's lived inside it.
That frontline experience sits alongside his clinical practice as a qualified hypnotherapist and accredited EFT practitioner. What he brings to Piece of Mind Training isn't theoretical. It's current, grounded and built entirely from the inside out.
David leads on development, making sure our programmes are grounded in real-world application. Not what the textbook says should happen. What actually works when it matters.
Ian Young
Ian is an experienced therapist whose work spans trauma, addiction, anxiety and recovery. His approach is shaped as much by lived experience as by professional training, and that combination makes him exceptionally relatable to the people he works with.
People who've worked with Ian consistently say the same thing: he gets it, in a way that goes beyond what most trainers can offer. He doesn't just understand the subject. He understands people.
Within Piece of Mind Training, Ian also plays a key role in business and strategic development, bringing a practical, grounded perspective to how the organisation grows and evolves.
What drives us
The values below define who we are, how we work, and why we're committed to delivering training that truly makes a difference.
Real experience
Everyone on this team has been through something. We don't deliver this training from a manual. We deliver it from an understanding of what it actually feels like.
Human first
We're not generic facilitators. We bring the subject to life in the room, with real conversations, real examples and a genuine commitment to making the training feel human rather than clinical.
Built to last
Training that disappears two weeks later isn't training, it's a box ticked. Everything we deliver is designed to give people tools, confidence and resources they'll still be using six months from now.
Fitted to you
No two organisations are the same. We take the time to understand who you are and what you actually need before we build anything.
What people say
"The most engaging mental health training our team has ever done. Six months on, people still reference it."
"Practical, human, and refreshingly free of jargon. The ongoing support is what really sets them apart."
"We didn't just tick a compliance box, we genuinely shifted the culture. That's the difference."
Want to know more about how we work?
Get in touch and let's have a conversation about what your organisation needs.