About me
I would consider myself the type of therapist who has much life experience, including adversity, and that this has helped me to develop a profounder understanding of emotional distress and the ability to offer more innovative responses to guide a person out of difficulty.
My training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy allows me to work in depth with the root cause of emotional issues and my additional background as a university lecturer in the psychotherapy field for many years, has provided me with a breadth of knowledge, in a variety of approaches and in related areas of thinking and technique, which I can draw upon where appropriate and tailor to individual needs.
I have a particular interest in attachment, so I focus on the way childhood and trauma effects emotional development and adult personality. I also have a specialist understanding of bodily disturbances and symptoms, physical illness included. So, I address mental as well as physical health and always in the social and environmental context in which a person lives
Training, qualifications & experience
I have over Thirty years of experience, trained with the British Association of Psychotherapists (BAP) now (BPF) and am registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC). I at first specialised in child development and attachment which are crucial in helping understand adult experiences, I did two years at the Tavistock Clinic in infant-observation and childhood studies, started off working in the NHS and Social Services working psycho dynamically with children and adolescents, then specialised with the British Association (BAP) to work with adults, minimum six years training. Over twenty five years in private practices working with individuals.
I worked as a staff psychotherapist for years at the Women's Therapy Centre specialising in Women's issues and domestic violence. I was employed as a consultant psychotherapist at the Helen Bamber Foundation with people who suffered extreme trauma and abuse, post- traumatic stress disorder and complex stress disorder were common in this context.
Academic qualifications being a First Class Degree in Sociology, a PhD in Psychoanalysis. It was in the PhD that I focused on the body, psychosomatics and body image problems. Worked for many years as a Director of PhD studies in Psychotherapy and Counselling, Regents college, as a Senior Lecturer in Psychotherapy at the University of East London, and at the Tavistock clinic, where I ran a course for years on Film Psychoanalysis and Culture, and now still work there as an academic tutor on the MA in Psychoanalysis, I am a Clinical Scholar with the British Psychoanalytic Council(BPC).
Founding member of the International Attachment Network (IAN), run academic and clinical courses. Publish widely in the field on attachment, trauma and the body (see Publications)
