TAVISTOCK AND PORTMAN - Key Persons

Adi Steiner

Job Titles:

Psychodynamic Psychotherapist and Senior Clinical Social Worker

Adi is the Organising Tutor on the Tavistock post-graduate certificate course - Child, Adolescent and Family Mental health and well-being: multidisciplinary practice. She is also Organising Tutor on the Tavistock short CPD course, Talking to Children About Difficult Things (CPD116). Adi has worked in the field of Mental Health since 2003 as a Social Worker and Senior Clinical Social Worker and has subsequently undertaken a four year training in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy with Adults at the Tavistock Centre. Her clinical work is within the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in Hertfordshire and in private practice. She has substantial experience of undertaking complex assessments, as well as treatment, working with adults, children, adolescents and families. Previously she worked in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in Essex undertaking multi-disciplinary Mental Health Assessments and providing medium to long term therapy as well as planning and delivering training to local GP's and Headteachers and Education based staff across county.

Ajit Menon

Job Titles:

Business Leader
Course Tutor and Supervisor
EMCC Certified Executive Coach

Ajit is a business leader with a background in financial services and creating impactful organisational change in large corporations. He has a proven record of success at senior levels (executive and board), where he demonstrates strategic thinking, leadership development, organisation development, and strategic HR skills. He is known for making quick decisions and being able to facilitate, challenge, and influence at all levels, and he is a reliable leader in driving change. Ajit's skills also extend to HR transformation and M&A, where he has managed complexities and delivered smooth transitions. An EMCC certified executive coach, Ajit has led teams and held key community roles such as talent and well-being Governor for Riverside School and external member of Council and Trustee at the University of Essex. He is recognised for his expertise, contributes to publications and has served as visiting faculty at institutions like University College London and the London School of Economics. He recently co-authored the book, ‘What Lies Beneath, How Organisations Really Work' (Phoenix, 2021).

Alison Roy - Founder

Job Titles:

Co - Founder
Consultant
Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist

Alison Roy is a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist in East Sussex and has been working as a psychotherapist for 20 years. Alison is also the co-founder and clinical lead for the CAMHS and East Sussex Post Adoption Mental Health Service - AdCAMHS. Her work focuses on understanding trauma and distress and how this manifests itself within individuals, couples, families and organisations. Alison has written a book on adoption, A for Adoption, and has also contributed a chapter to the book, Education through the arts for wellbeing and community (Burke, Cunningham and Hoare). In addition to her NHS post, Alison works independently in private practice with adults and adoptive families, focusing on parental relationships. She also facilitates reflective practice groups within the public and corporate sector. Previously Alison was the Director of Communications for the Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP) and the editor for the ACP Bulletin. Before training as a psychotherapist, she was the director of a community arts project called Generations Arts Project, worked as an arts critic, and edited a youth magazine. She contributes regularly to main-stream media on topics relating to emotional wellbeing and mental health.

Amanda Keenan

Job Titles:

Child Pyschotherapist
Children 's Mental Health, Psychological Therapies

Angela Bagum

Job Titles:

Course Lead
Mental Health Nurse and Art Psychotherapist / Workplace Dynamics

Angela Bagum (NMC & HCPC Reg) qualified as a nurse twenty years ago, having originally studied at art college. Throughout the years, Angela has maintained her art practice and combined her experiences of art and mental health by training as an art psychotherapist. Angela is a visiting lecturer at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and works as an organisational consultant with Tavistock Consulting - supporting organisations through a ‘whole systems' approach to organisational wellbeing. She has worked with the Lighthouse multi-agency service, supporting children and young people in their experience of sexual abuse and exploitation, in Camden. She also co-developed the ‘Working towards wellbeing' course bundle, partly as a recognition of the fact that we have experienced a collective trauma in the Covid-19 pandemic. Angela says that "the courses aim to bring together mindfulness, compassion-focused therapy ideas and narrative applications, introducing these to our everyday lives at home and to our agile working approaches. We hope that knowing ‘it's ok to not be ok' will provide the motivation to notice oneself and allow space for a mindful tea break, for example, when it's most needed". Course lead Angela Bagum shares a simple way to introduce moments of mindfulness into your daily life.

Ashley Grinham-Smith

Job Titles:

Child, Community & Educational Psychologist

Ashley Grinham-Smith is currently training to be an Educational Psychologist at The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Before his training, Ashley worked in schools for 10 years as a teacher and was a senior leader in the country's only University Teaching Primary School with responsibilities for pastoral care. He has a special interest in working systemically to endorse and promote trauma-informed inclusive practices within schools and is passionate about inclusion and pastoral provision in education. He has recently edited a book on inclusive learning and co-authored a chapter that promotes inclusive practices when supporting children who are at risk of exclusion and suspension; highlighting the importance of reframing behaviour as a communication of need. Ashley is a keen advocate for championing children at risk of marginalisation and exclusion and supporting systems to consider and listen to the unsaid when learning how to "speak the language" of the children within their settings.

Caroline Black

Caroline Black is a British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) registered psychodynamic psychotherapist, having completed her training at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. Caroline's background is in mental health nursing and over her career she has worked in psychiatric inpatient, assertive outreach, psychiatric liaison (A&E) and community settings as a specialist practitioner and as a psychotherapist. Caroline now works from her private practice in Hampshire, UK, where she treats both private and NHS referred adult patients. Caroline also teaches on the hugely popular Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy courses at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.

Chris Scanlon

Job Titles:

Course Tutor and Supervisor

Chris is an independent psycho-social researcher/consultant; a training group analyst at the Institute of Group Analysis (UK) and at the Irish Group Analytic Society (Dublin); a senior associate at the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations (TIHR); an associate of the Tavistock Consultancy Service (TCS); a member of the Organisation for the Promotion of the Understanding of Society (OPUS), and a Principal Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (PFHEA). He worked for 40 years as a practitioner and educator in NHS and university settings, including 15 years as an NHS Consultant General Adult and Forensic Psychotherapist, specialising in therapeutic community practice, complex multiple exclusion, trauma-informed reflective practice and service development. He has acted as expert advisor/consultant to a range of agencies including NHS England, the Department of Health, Ministry of Justice, Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and National Offender Management Services (NOMS), as well as a wide range of organisations and agencies working in the field. Chris is a founder member and board member of the Association for Psychosocial Studies (APS), an associate editor of the ‘Journal of Psychosocial Studies', ‘Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society' and the ‘British Journal of Psychotherapy' and a scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC). He is published widely in the field and his most recent publication (with John Adlam), Psychosocial explorations of trauma, exclusion and violence, was published by Routledge in 2022.

Christopher Vincent

Christopher Vincent is a couple psychotherapist in private practice. Originally qualifying as a social worker in 1971, he trained with the British Association of Psychotherapists as an individual psychotherapist and as a couple psychotherapist at Tavistock Relationships where he was a senior staff member from 1977 to 2002. He then worked for four years as a consultant psychotherapist in an NHS mental health trust before working exclusively in private practice. From 2009 to 2017 he was a research student in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Southampton University where he completed a study into the impacts of Huntington's Disease on couple relationships. He coordinates a special interest group focusing on illness and couple functioning. He is a member of the editorial board of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis and has recently guest edited its September 2021 issue. His research and writing have focused on how the major challenges of divorce and illness impact couple and family life.

Claire Shaw

Job Titles:

Consultant
Nurse

Claire Shaw (RNMH, MSc) is a Nurse Consultant. Claire undertook an MSc at the Tavistock and latterly the Multi-disciplinary psychoanalytic psychotherapy training. Claire's background is in working within the NHS, primarily working psychodynamically with patients with histories of abuse, trauma and self-harm. Claire has been engaged in developing and providing training for approx. 20 years and is interested in the application of psychoanalytic ideas to the provision of care in frontline NHS services. She is currently engaged in developing and providing training, facilitating work discussion groups, providing supervision and undertaking clinical work in the Trust. Claire writes: "I went into nursing originally as I was interested in working with people. I was unsure what I wanted to do when I left school, so I arranged some work experience in a cottage hospital. It was when I worked within a mental health service, however, that I really became interested and motivated to train as a nurse. During my nurse training I was lucky enough to work within a psychodynamic service, which provided a very different way of understanding patients' difficulties to the usual medical model approach. I knew that I wanted to explore and learn more so I developed my interest and understanding through doing an MSc in Institutional and Community Care at the Tavistock. I did this whilst still working as a nurse. "It was quite an intense experience to start with but has been one of the most valuable and influential learning experiences for me. I was taught by people who had immense experience and understanding but most importantly shared their real interest and passion for the application of psychoanalytic ideas to everyday mental health care. In the following years I continued to work psychodynamically as a nurse, gaining extensive experience in both group and individual work, supervision, developing and providing training and the daily running of an NHS service. I decided that the next step would be to train as a psychotherapist. Fortunately, at that point a staff post became available on the M1 (interdisciplinary adult psychoanalytic psychotherapy) training at the Tavistock which I successfully applied for. I undertook the training part-time and have since worked across psychoanalytic psychotherapy, training and nursing.

Claudia Noël-Michael

Job Titles:

Senior Specialist
Senior Specialist Educational Psychologist

Claudia is a senior specialist educational psychologist (EP) and Coordinator of Redbridge Educational Wellbeing Team (REWT). Claudia has been an EP for 18 years. She has worked in three different LAs, Essex, Camden and currently Redbridge. Claudia has a range of specialisms, firstly supporting schools with critical incidents, secondly, Claudia has worked for a Virtual School for three years and has in-depth knowledge about working with looked after children (LAC). As Coordinator of the REWT team which includes a Mental Health Support Team (MHST), Claudia has specialised in Wellbeing and Mental Health for the past few years and has worked with all schools, primary, secondary, special, and alternative provisions to make Mental Health a priority in Redbridge schools. Claudia has collaborated with a number of teams who specialise with MH and works closely with CAMHS, Public Health, Social Services, LAC team and Leaving Care team. Claudia is trained as a CBT practioner, Solihull Approach trainer, trained in Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) and Critical Incident Stress Debriefing. Claudia is also trained in ASIST and is currently working with all Redbridge schools to create a suicide safe community. Claudia has had a variety of supervision opportunities at different levels and as the lead trainer for the Senior Mental Health Lead (SMHL) training course has supervised SMHLs, Emotional Literacy Support Assistants (ELSAs) and has also worked on the Tavistock Doctorate EP training course as a year 1 field work tutor for the past 12 years, supporting and supervising year 1 trainee EPs.

David Amias

Job Titles:

Consultant Systemic & Family Psychotherapist

Counselling and psychotherapy,Refugees,Social work and social care,Systemic and family therapy,Psychological therapies David Amias BA Hons MSW, MSc is dually qualified as a social worker (MSW in Social Work attained in 1984 from Haifa University) and as a family therapist (MSc in Family Therapy) attained in 1993 from Brunel University in association with the Tavistock Clinic). He has worked with children and families first as a social worker and then as a systemic psychotherapist for 37 years in different statutory and voluntary health and social care contexts. He is an experienced supervisor, consultant and teacher of family therapy and systemic practice specialising in the domains of social care and refugee work. He has held his current post held is as consultant systemic psychotherapist for the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust since 2005. At the Tavistock Centre he works in the CAMHS Refugee Service, runs the CPD course ‘Working with refugee people and their families (D35)' and co-ordinates the Tavistock modules of the MA in Refugee care run in association with Essex University (M35). He leads the Refugee Hub, a monthly multi agency forum offering an exchange of ideas and learning for people working with asylum seekers and refugees. He also works for the Trust in the whole family perinatal service offering consultation to professional networks and offering brief focused family therapy as appropriate.

Dr Adam Styles

Job Titles:

Deputy Director, Research and Senior Educational Psychologist

Dr Adam Styles, DCCEdPsych, HCPC reg, is Academic and Professional Tutor and Research Lead for the Doctorate in ‘Child, community and educational psychology (M4)' within the Child and Family Directorate at the Tavistock Centre. Adam is a Senior Educational Psychologist with Kent Educational Psychology Service. Prior to this he worked for Kent as a main grade Educational Psychologist from September 2009, having completed the Educational Psychology professional training programme at the Tavistock. Adam started as a part-time Academic and Professional Tutor at the Tavistock in September 2013 before taking on Research Lead role for the M4 course and Course Director role for CPD Doctorate in Advanced Practice and Research for qualified Educational Psychologists in September 2016. Adam has been a tutor on the Integrated Professional Doctorate programme at the Tavistock, is an experienced supervisor and examiner of doctoral research in Educational Psychology and acts as external examiner for equivalent Educational Psychology professional training programmes at other universities.

Dr Alla Rubitel

Job Titles:

Consultant Psychiatrist in Forensic Psychotherapy
Psychiatrist in Forensic Psychotherapy at the Portman

Dr Alla Rubitel is a consultant psychiatrist in forensic psychotherapy at the Portman clinic. She co-edited a book "Containment in the community" published by Karnac in The Portman Papers series. She also contributed chapters to the books in the field of forensic psychotherapy.

Dr Ana Draper

Job Titles:

Clinical Lead and Consultant
Consultant Systemic Psychotherapist

Dr Ana Draper is a clinical lead and consultant systemic psychotherapist and is the discipline lead for systemic psychotherapy at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. She is a doctor in systemic psychotherapy, and a clinical supervisor. She has worked in the field of childhood bereavement and palliative care, with asylum with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, as well as adoption and looked after children. Her current role is as outcomes lead and all systems change for Mindworks Surrey, which is a clinical alliance of which the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust is a partner. Her research has been recognised at an international level and she has presented her clinical work with children in Ecuador, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Australia, and Europe. In her work with Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children, she has developed a narrative trauma approach that is linked to her therapeutic practice. This way of working has gone on to be used across the UK and in Europe.

Dr Anna Harvey

Job Titles:

Associate
Lecturer
Social Worker

Dr Anna Harvey has been a children and families social worker since 1997, specialising in complex child protection work. Before that, she worked for 7 years with homeless people in Glasgow who had mental health and addiction problems. She has worked at the Tavistock and Portman as a lecturer since 2016, and before that was visiting lecturer from 2008. She is a consultant in reflective supervision and reflective practice groups. She has an interest in the emotional and unconscious factors involved in social work. She has written a number of articles about the experience of social work and social care.

Dr Ariel Nathanson

Job Titles:

Consultant
Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist

Dr Ariel Nathanson is a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist at the Portman Clinic where he specialises in the assessment and treatment of children, adolescents and young adults who display perverse, delinquent and violent behaviours. Ariel works privately as an organisational consultant to therapeutic communities for highly disturbed children adolescents. He is also a clinical supervisor and consultant to other clinicians and front-line workers who engage violent young people in gangs and in prisons.

Dr Ben Craik

Job Titles:

Deputy Programme Director

Dr Ben Craik, DCCEdPsych, CPsychol, HCPC reg, is Deputy Programme Director for our Doctorate course in Child, community and educational psychology (M4) within the Child and Family Directorate at the Tavistock Centre. Ben has responsibility for supervision and placements for trainees on the course. Ben is an Educational Psychologist with Hackney Educational Psychology Service where he has worked since 2014, now with a specialist role working within the Virtual School for Looked After Children. Ben started as an Academic and Professional Tutor on the Educational Psychology training Course in September 2019 before taking on the Deputy Director role in January 2023. Prior to training as a psychologist Ben was a qualified teacher having taught at both a primary and secondary level within London and the South East of England. Ben has research interests in psychological supervision, multi-disciplinary working and the work of educational psychologists with vulnerable groups including care experienced young people. Ben is also a facilitator for the Trust's British Psychological Society-accredited short course Supervision in schools and community contexts: working relationally and reflectively (CPD32).

Dr Beth Neustadt

Job Titles:

Programme Co - Director

Dr Beth Neustadt's early career, in the US, was in mental health service delivery and programme evaluation and then organisational consulting. This led to work with a British firm undergoing transformation from government agency into a FTSE 100-listed corporation, which precipitated her relocation to the UK. Later, she established her own London-based consulting business. Over 25 years in the UK, Beth delivered organisational consulting, including role consultations, through Neustatus Consulting, Ltd. and in association with established consulting firms, including Tavistock Consulting, where she also earned an executive coaching certification and subsequently became a visiting lecturer for our professional doctorate in Advanced practice and research: consultation and the organisation (D10D). In 2012, Beth returned to the Boston area to take up the role of director of executive education custom programs at Harvard Business School. She managed an international portfolio of client relationships, engaging in business development, programme design and delivery, and programme evaluation. She worked with HBS faculty and executive education delivery teams, and with clients' senior executives and learning and development teams. In 2019, Beth returned to self-employment, working through both her London firm and its US counterpart, Neustatus Consulting, LLC. Beth's executive coaching portfolio includes established executives and future leaders, employed in a mix of proprietary businesses and non-profit organisations, based in both the UK and the US. In July 2023, Beth accepted a part-time position in the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, where her responsibilities include co-directing our Executive coaching programme - Tavistock Consulting (ECP). Beth holds a BA in Theatre Arts from Cornell University, an MBA and an ABD in Social Psychology (Organization Development concentration) from Boston University, and a PhD in Psychology from University College, London. She also holds EMCC Global Individual Accreditation (EIA) at Senior Practitioner level.

Dr Brian Davis

Job Titles:

Consultant Educational Psychologist
Deputy Head of Psychology

In his role as Director and as Deputy Head of Psychology, Dr Brian Davis is part of the team providing educational psychology doctorate training courses at the Tavistock. He has previously held a major strategic role in a Local Authority with responsibilities including the management and commissioning of specialist support services including educational psychology and child and adolescent mental health for children with special educational and additional needs. He has extensive experience as the Principal Educational Psychologist for two London authorities and as a practitioner educational psychologist including a specialism for social, emotional, behavioural issues and working with mental health teams. He has managed a service applying systemic and psychotherapeutic approaches to children at risk of exclusion and becoming looked after. He has had a long term interest in Educational Psychology training. He has previously been on a professional Educational Psychology training university steering committee and delivered training sessions on courses. Brian has been a school governor and is also a qualified teacher, having worked in a teaching delivery and education advisory capacity across all age ranges in education and a number of specialist environments. Brian's special and research interests include the development of quality Educational Psychology practice and continuing professional development; professional training; the promotion of positive outcomes for children and young people; and building of resilience in the community through strategic and multi - agency working.

Dr Caoimhe McBay

Job Titles:

Educational Psychologist

Dr Caoimhe McBay is a Personal and Academic Tutor for our Doctorate course in Child, community and educational psychology (M4). Caoimhe trained and worked as a primary school teacher before completing a Master's degree in Educational Psychology at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in 2000. Caoimhe has worked as an educational psychologist in four different London Boroughs over the last 20 years and is currently working as a senior educational psychologist in an inner London Borough. She has an interest in working with young people who have been excluded from education and completed her doctoral research on the narrative identities and life stories of young adults who attended Alternative Provision. Caoimhe values and enjoys being involved in the training and development of educational psychologists. She has an interest in researching supervision and has extensive experience of supervising trainees, educational psychologists, and school professionals. Caoimhe is a facilitator for the Trust's British Psychological Society-accredited short course Supervision in schools and community contexts: working relationally and reflectively (CPD32).

Dr Chris Shaldon

Job Titles:

Senior Educational Psychologist

Dr Chris Shaldon, a Senior Educational Psychologist in Islington local authority and an Academic and Professional Tutor on the educational psychology doctoral training programme at the Trust. Dr Shaldon has extensive experience as a supervisor for both trainees and qualified practitioners, including Designated Safeguarding Leads in schools and supervision is a core research area of interest.

Dr Deirdre Meehan

Job Titles:

Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist
Child Development, Child Observation, Observation Approaches, Psychoanalytic Studies

Dr Deirdre Meehan is a child and adolescent psychotherapist with many years' experience working in CAMHS in Northern Ireland. She is also a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytical Society and works as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist within adult mental health. She has a broad interest in trauma-related developmental difficulties leading to mental health problems in children, adolescents and adults. This interest led to her doctoral study of developmental progress in severely deprived traumatised children through examining the detail and efficacy of analytic interventions with these children. She also has a keen interest in parent-infant psychotherapy.

Dr Sarah Wynick

Job Titles:

Head of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Tavistock Clinic

Dr Sarah Wynick (she/her) is the Head of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Tavistock Clinic, and runs the only psychotherapy training in the UK which is specifically for child psychiatrists. She is a BPC registered couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist. She has been involved in working with organisations via consultation, group relations work and teaching, for the past three decades.

Dr Sheena Webb

Job Titles:

Clinical Psychologist
Nursing Assistant

Adult mental health,Children's mental health,Leadership and management,Trauma,Workplace dynamics,Counselling and psychotherapy,Forensic,Social work and social care Dr Sheena Webb started her career as a Nursing Assistant twenty years ago at the Bethlem Royal Hospital. After qualifying as a Clinical Psychologist in 2003, she has worked in a number of NHS child mental health services specialising in children and adults with complex needs and high risk-behaviour. For most of her career, Dr Webb has worked in innovative services which try to provide psychological intervention to families which are usually considered ‘hard to help'. This has included delivering multisystemic therapy and providing specialist assessments and interventions for Local Authorities and the Family Courts. In 2015, Dr Webb joined FDAC, which is a problem-solving court which brings together health, social care and justice professionals to help parents struggling with addiction who are at risk of losing their children. Dr Webb has a special interest in complex developmental trauma and in developing ‘trauma-informed' services that recognise the impact of childhood trauma upon psychosocial outcomes and upon how individuals engage with services. Dr Webb delivers training to a range of health and social care professionals on trauma informed care, parental substance misuse and mental health.

Dr Stephen Blumenthal

Job Titles:

Clinical Psychologist
Psychoanalyst

Adult mental health,Forensic,Psychotherapy (psychoanalytic, psychodynamic),Psychoanalytic studies Dr Stephen Blumenthal is a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist in private practice and at the Portman Clinic, Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. He is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society.

Dr Stephen Mills

Job Titles:

Associate
Lecturer

Dr Stephen Mills works part-time in a CAMHS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health) team with children in care and their professional networks, where he is developing an approach he calls COREL - Creating Opportunities for Reflection and Expansive Learning - based upon his doctoral research. As part of his CAMHS work, Stephen also facilitates groups for foster carers and special guardianship carers using the COREL model. Stephen joined the doctoral team for our Advanced practice and research: systemic psychotherapy (M10) professional doctorate training in 2021. His doctoral study, Constructions of the Child in Care: Generating Alternative Figurations of Children and Childhood in Care that may be Useful for Multi-Agency Network Practices , is focused on how care for children in the care system in England is constructed within language, practices, and discourses within professional care networks - networks made up of social workers, teachers, foster carers, and often CAMHS clinicians. His study used post-colonial, new materialist, posthuman, feminist, and systemic methodologies, and proposes that opening up the care system's assumptions to greater critical debate will generate more finely attuned care practices, broaden the knowledge base available (creating an ecology of knowledges rather than a hierarchy), and create significant opportunities for mobilising collaborative practice between professional network members.