Our Story
Two different stories. One shared purpose
The Manse Core Group began with two people, two very different life stories, and a shared belief that our past should not have to determine how we feel today.
Our own experiences of grief, loss, trauma and change ultimately led us to ask a question that would shape everything that followed:
Why can we know something is over, yet still feel the emotional response as though it isn't?
Carl's Story
Carl lost his father as a child, his mother as a young man and his only son, James, in 2024.
Those experiences gave Carl a deeply personal understanding of grief and emotional pain, something lived, not simply learned.
They also raised a question that would eventually shape much of our work:
How do we move forward when something has changed our world completely?
Kim's Story
Kim's experiences were very different. At 15, she emigrated to Australia and had to adapt to a completely new life. By 22, she was raising a child on her own, and in her early twenties experienced a nervous breakdown that forced her to reassess everything.
Later experiences, including long-term health challenges and being directly impacted by the 7/7 London bombings, deepened her understanding of how experiences can continue to affect us long after the event itself has passed.
Two very different journeys were ultimately asking many of the same questions.
Where it began
When we met, our different experiences and professional backgrounds came together.
Our work began at our home in Northamptonshire, a former vicarage known as The Manse.
It became The Manse Retreat, where over several years we worked closely with people carrying emotional trauma, PTSD, grief, phobias and difficult experiences from their past.
That work taught us something important:
People didn't always need to tell us everything that had happened in order to create change
The Manse Method®
From that work came The Manse Method®, a practical psycho-sensory approach based on neuroscience principles, designed to help change the emotional response connected to difficult memories and experiences without requiring people to talk through or relive what happened.
Today, we train practitioners in The Manse Method®, enabling its reach to grow far beyond The Manse.
But another question remained
What if people had practical skills before they reached the point of needing more support?
That question led to Emotion Pathway®, taking practical, trauma-informed skills into schools, emergency services and workplaces.
It doesn't replace existing support. It gives people something practical they can use for themselves, earlier.
Where we are now
The house that gave The Manse its name has now been sold. But The Manse was never really about a building.
Today, Manse Core Group is home to The Manse Method® and Emotion Pathway®, focused on practitioner training and bringing practical emotional skills into organisations.
Our work has evolved from helping the person sitting in front of us to asking a much bigger question:
How many people could we reach if we gave others the skills to create change too?