I am an experienced psychodynamic psychotherapist with a practice in Edinburgh. I am registered with The British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) as a member of the Association for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in the Public Sector. I am qualified in Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy and in Mentalisation Based Therapy. I am bound by the BPC’s Code of Professional Conduct and Ethical Principles.
The Psychodynamic Approach
You might have first contacted me after you have decided that you can’t carry on in the same way. You might have tried to manage your life by putting something, probably painful, to the back of your mind and ignoring it. Maybe you did this so well that you lost sight of it — it became unconscious, but this comes at a price. You might be left with a feeling of being less than you could be.
Initially I would offer you a consultation over one or more meetings. If we decide to work together, I would invite you to talk about whatever comes to mind, including how you feel about me.
As we think together, we will find meaning and patterns in how you think about yourself and how you experience other people relating to you. We will work to build a map of your internal world to understand those patterns you’ve been stuck with. This understanding is freeing and can help you to live your life more fully.
Who can benefit
Someone who is in the aftermath of a traumatic experience may need a few sessions to talk through their experience.
Someone who is experiencing self-sabotaging thoughts, feelings and behaviours that they feel stuck with – such a person might understand their difficulties through longer-term psychotherapy. They can gain more self-knowledge, get unstuck and develop more creative, fulfilling ways of living.
Someone who is depressed, who has a particular difficulty they have identified in their relationships, can benefit from sixteen sessions of Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy.
Sometimes a person can gain enough from an extended consultation of a few meetings. This can help the person to consider their difficulties from a more compassionate, self-respecting perspective.
Who can benefit from supervision
l offer clinical supervision and a space for reflective practice work to trained individuals accredited with the BPC or the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, who are in practice privately or within an institution; also to Allied Health Professionals, to professionals registered with The Health and Care Professions Council, and to doctors.
Training and experience
- In NHS Psychiatry for over twenty-five years, including seventeen years as a Consultant in General Adult Psychiatry.
- Trained with and taught at The Scottish Institute of Human Relations.
- Accredited practitioner in Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy.
- Led, co-delivered and supervised an NHS psychotherapy service using Mentalisation-Based Therapy (MBT) for individuals suffering from borderline personality disorder.
- Trained in supervision and reflective practice with The Balint Society and with the Centre for Supervision and Team Development (London).
- Devised and delivered psychodynamically-informed teaching and group supervision on “Hard-to-Help” patients for ten years.
- Co-delivered eleven Mentalising Skills courses across the country as founder member of MBT Scotland.
- Delivered teaching at NHS Education for Scotland – on mentalising with patients suffering from personality disorder – to GP trainees over ten years.