For practitioners
The CYCLES Training Institute
Menstrual and hormone-informed practitioner training
Your clients' hormones are already shaping their mental health. Most of us were just never taught to see it.
PMS, PMDD, perinatal mood difficulties, perimenopause and menopause can all present as depression, anxiety, or emotional dysregulation. They are frequently missed, and the cost to clients is real.
It is not a question of attention or care. Across the menstrual cycle, perimenopause, and menopause, hormones shape mood, anxiety, cognition, and emotional regulation in ways that clinical training has rarely addressed. A 2026 paper in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology, the BPS's flagship practitioner journal, identifies this as a significant deficit in practitioner education and a clinical priority.
That is not a clinical failure. It is a training gap.
The CYCLES Institute exists to close it: the first structured clinical programme of its kind in the UK, developed through co-research with over 250 people living with PMDD and supported by the International Association for Premenstrual Disorders (IAPMD).
“I’ve been to so many practitioners. Nobody has ever asked me about my cycle.”
What we offer
Introductory Workshop
A 90-minute online workshop offering a psychologically grounded introduction to hormonal and menstrual health presentations. Designed for qualified mental health professionals who are already encountering this work in their practice or are ready to begin.
Register your interest below and be the first to hear when dates are confirmed.
Foundation Day
A CPD training day for therapists and mental health practitioners who want grounded, clinically credible training in hormonal and menstrual health. Practical, evidence-based, and built around the CYCLES Framework.
Dates coming soon
The CYCLES Practitioner Certification
A specialist certification pathway for practitioners who want to develop a recognised area of clinical practice in hormonal and menstrual health. Covers PMS, PMDD, perinatal mood difficulties, perimenopause and menopause, with further pathways in development.
Clinicians who join the first cohort will be named as founding practitioners in the CYCLES Directory.
Launching 2026
Places will be limited.
About the CYCLES Framework
The CYCLES Framework was co-developed through research with over 250 people living with PMDD, in partnership with the International Association for Premenstrual Disorders (IAPMD). It brings together evidence-based psychology, clinical expertise, and real-world lived experience into a structured, teachable model.
CYCLES is an acronym capturing the six clinical domains at the heart of the framework.
Calm the nervous system
Helping the body feel safer and more settled across the cycle
Your patterns
Understanding how hormonal presentations show up individually
Cope with emotions and stress
Developing responses that reduce fallout and self-blame
Live with cyclical awareness
Planning and responding in ways that reflect changing capacity
Engage differently
With thoughts, expectations, relationships, and with oneself
Sustain what helps
Recognising what builds steadiness over time and what undermines it
About me
I am an HCPC-registered clinical psychologist specialising in hormonal mental health. I have worked clinically with hundreds of people living with PMDD, perimenopause, menopause, and related conditions, and have trained and consulted for professional organisations across the UK and for universities internationally, including consulting on the competency frameworks and assessment processes used to qualify clinical psychologists in Rwanda and as adjunct assistant professor at Addis Ababa University.
I spent years in clinical practice before I made the connection in myself: that my own mental health was being shaped by my hormones. I had the training. I still missed it, because it was never part of my training.
The CYCLES Framework was co-developed through research with over 250 people living with PMDD, in partnership with the International Association for Premenstrual Disorders (IAPMD). I founded the CYCLES Institute because the training I needed did not exist.
Most of us qualified without any training in hormonal mental health.
Ready to close the gap?
The first cohort of CYCLES-trained practitioners will help set the standard for this field. Register your interest now to be first in line for founding practitioner places.
DClinPsy
HCPC Registered Clinical Psychologist
Specialist in hormone-related mental health
Dr Helena Tucker,
Clinical Psychologist
167-169 Great Portland Street,
5th Floor, London
W1W 5PF, United Kingdom
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