Turning Pain into Purpose: How Winnie Akadjo is Changing Mental Health Support

Today, Wendy is joined by award-winning entrepreneur Winnie Akadjo the founder of Aeli Health, a startup that is working to make it easier for therapists to extend better continuity of care to clients between therapy sessions. Winnie helps practitioners to provide their patients with tailored coping strategies and mechanisms they can use to process the emotions that come up during the average 168 hours between sessions. Winnie experienced a lot of trauma and developed Complex PTSD. She shares her journey, including healing through Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), how her faith helped, and how her experience motivated her to found Aeli Health. KEY TAKEAWAYS Inevitably, therapy triggers strong emotions in most people. Patients who are taught what to expect at various stages in their therapeutic journey and provided with tools to support themselves between sessions can thrive. Sometimes trauma can become your identity. Try to recognise the good things in amongst the bad things. BEST MOMENTS “For those first couple of sessions, I would come home and not know how to process my emotions.” “Many people are just living in that haze. They just think, ‘This is fine, this is just normal, but it's not .” “I was very much living with complex PTSD, but I wasn't aware of my complex PTSD.” ABOUT THE GUEST Winnie Akadjo has a decade of professional experience in sales and digital marketing within technology startups across venture capital, social media, and e-commerce environments, having worked at Benefit Cosmetics, Zipcar, Groupon, Founders Factory and TikTok. Over the last two years, Winnie founded LVS Hub, a marketing agency specialising in helping brands and retailers expand their audiences and drive sales through innovative live and video shopping technology, including TikTok Shop. Her entrepreneurial success includes winning grant funding from Foundervine and hosting workshops with the British Library. Winnie has also participated in panels with organisations such as AppsFlyer, Rarely Heard Voices and Carta. As a care-leaver, Winnie's journey has deeply informed her understanding of resilience and the importance of mental well-being. Currently, she is building Aeli, a platform to help trauma-informed practitioners provide a better continuity of care to their clients by bridging the 168-hour gap between therapy sessions. Alongside her entrepreneurial pursuits, Winnie enjoys running, cooking, and exploring her Christian faith. She is also the proud mother of an eighteen-year-old son. https://www.linkedin.com/in/winnie-akadjo https://www.aeli.io VALUABLE RESOURCES www.wendycastelino.com https://www.instagram.com/wendycastelino/ https://www.youtube.com/@wendycastelino798 https://twitter.com/WendyCastelino ABOUT THE HOST Wendy Castelino has been working as a psychotherapist for over thirty-five years. As an accredited CBT and EMDR practitioner, she is committed to upholding the rigorous standards required for these accreditations and helping thousands of people reach their full potential. Wendy currently runs a private practice where her focus is on CBT. Therapy is constantly evolving into developing new techniques, so she studies hard to integrate them into her therapy, to provide a rich and effective experience. Wendy is aware that working in one-to-one therapy limits the number of people she can see. She has, therefore, created a range of online resources. These resources are designed to be easy to follow and provide clear, step-by-step instructions. This can help the individual to master skills and gain confidence, therefore optimising the therapy sessions. They are also suitable to be used on their own. Further details are available at: WendyCastelino.com. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/