Brief personal, medical, and analytic CV
A man, born 1943 in England; Caucasian English (ancestrally, the usual mongrel mixture of North European heritages). Married, for 50+ years, with 2 grown-up children.
Qualified (LRCP, MRCS, MBBS) as a doctor of medicine from St. George's Hospital, London, 1965.
Attained Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) 1968.
Awarded Master of Science, M.Sc (Occ Med) from the London School of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene 1977
Between 1965 and 1982 I was a physician at a number of hospitals, in the UK, Middle East, Africa, and the Far East.
Between 1978 and 1982, I underwent the training for Jungian analysts at the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP), becoming an Ordinary Member of the SAP, and Member of the International Association of Analytical Psychologists (IAAP), in 1982, and then an SAP Training Analyst.
At about the same time I became a Member and Training Analyst for the (as then) British Association of Psychotherapists (now the British Confederation of Psychotherapists (BCP), and a Training Therapist for the Westminster Pastoral Foundation (WPF); and, some years later, a Member and Training Analyst for the Guild of Analytical Psychology (GAP).
What I believe in, and how I approach the work
I would not have changed from my career as a hospital physician, had I not encountered the work of Carl Jung. So my vision, and understanding, of how and why to engage in the suffering of individuals is deeply, and gratefully, influenced by Jung.
The therapeutic structure within which I work is the standard one of psychoanalytic psychotherapy: 50 minute sessions, the times of which, once agreed, are rhythmic and reliable at a frequency of once, twice, or three times per week. I take 3 breaks each year, the dates of which are communicated well in advance.
My approach to this work differs from the 'medical model': I do not examine your state of being, come to a diagnosis, and provide you with a preconceived treatment that is generally considered to be effective for this or that condition. Instead, I witness and share with you your experience of yourself and of existence, as a person who has myself made, and continues to make, this same journey, and who has, additionally, acquired knowledge and experience through trainings and decades of work with many people, males and females, aged between 18 and 90, from many nations, religions, and cultures.
I have, since my early childhood, been fascinated by dreams and the phenomenon of dreaming; the mystery of dreams, the unlimited imagination manifested within them, the role they play in mental and physical health, in the becoming through time of individuals, in creativity and in the realising of ambitions and desires.
I know that the psyche, just like the body, has age-old self-healing capacities; dreams play a large part in how this happens, and so I value working with dreams in therapy, whenever they may come in. It is certainly true that dreams do their work of keeping us balanced whether we remember them or not; but dreams remembered, and engaged with consciously, enhance the depth and breadth of how we know ourselves as individual expressions of the human animal.
Experience & Registration
I have had a psychotherapy practice for the past 45 years.
I am registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council.
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
The Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP)
International Association of Analytical Psychologists (IAAP)
The Westminster Pastoral Foundation (WPF)
The Guild of Analytical Psychology (GAP)
British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC)
'Harley Therapy' offers a wide choice of psychotherapeutic and psychiatric approaches:
For a counsellor with particular experience of dancing and the performing arts:
https://www.danceuk.org/medical-practitioners-directory/md/profile/1566/