About Thomas
I am the eldest son of an East End of London family, and I left school unqualified aged 15. As a late-starter, aged twenty-one, I went into full-time education. My first undergraduate studies were in physiology, but competing interests led me to graduate in philosophy, at Bedford College, University of London. Following my degree I formed a successful pharmaceutical company in the UK, which I eventually sold to pursue my interests in self-development and psychology.
My career in psychotherapy began in the late 1980’s, when I entered professional training at the Karuna institute, in the UK. The Karuna, directed by Moira and Franklyn Sills, was the first UK institution to pioneer work on the relationship between meditation, Buddhist psychology and psychotherapy. Following a four-year training I was awarded a post-graduate diploma in Core Process Psychotherapy*.
Simultaneously, I entered Zen training under the guidance of the Venerable Myokyo-ni, at the Buddhist Society, in London. Over the last thirty years I have attended many meditation retreats and teaching programs; and I have been teaching meditation and giving workshops on Buddhist psychology for the last twenty-five years.
In 1995 I began lecturing and training psychotherapists and counsellors, teaching undergraduate and post-graduate students of psychology and psychotherapy. My academic career in the UK included lecturing at Epping Forest College in Essex, the Karuna Institute in Devon and the Cavendish Health Centre in Harley Street, London.
Professional Experience: Clinical and Teaching Between 1988 & 2017
- Private Practice in Loughton, Essex
- Individual and group psychotherapist at the Cavendish Health Centre, New Cavendish St (Harley St)
- Lecturer at the Karuna Institute, Devon.
- Internship at Hackney Hospital, London E8
- Lecturer and group facilitator at Epping Forest College, Essex, department of Counselling
- Group Psychotherapist at Debden House, Essex
- Private Individual and Couple Psychotherapy, Barcelona, Spain.
- Facilitator of Patient-Practitioner Relations: for the Barbara Brennan Training course, in Barcelona
- Facilitator of Patient-Practitioner Relations at the College of Practical Homeopathy, London
- Founder member of the English Speaking Therapist Network in Barcelona.
- Group Facilitation at South Pacific Private Hospital, Sydney
- Private Individual and Group psychotherapy in Sydney
- Senior lecturer and Supervisor at the Jansen Newman Institute, University of Sydney, Australia, where I taught the following range of subjects:
- Psychodynamics: Freud and neo Freudian theory, including Cognitive Analytic therapy. Developmental psychology, Object Relations theory and the work of Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, Margaret Mahler, Eric Erikson and the Self Psychology of Heinz Kohut.
- Alfred Adler: Individual psychology and the psychosocial approach
- Grief, Loss and Trauma: Wide ranging theoretical approaches from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, through Bowlby, Worden and Horowitz
- Principles of Human Change: A Broad perspective of contemporary psychotherapeutic treatment programmes. This course emphasised the need for clinical practitioners to undergo extensive, depth personal psychotherapy to avoid the negative affects of countertransference.
- Buddhist Psychology in Contemporary Psychotherapy Practice. Afive-day intensive, where students of learned a wide range of psychotherapeutic exercises from meditation to Gestalt and psychodrama.
- All my lectures include a contemporary neuroscientific perspective, focused upon Affective Neuroscience, drawing specifically upon the work of Cozolino, Doidge, Siegal and Schore…along with significant others.
- Registered by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy No. 970073. I paused my membership after moving to Australia.
- Clinical Member of the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Association of New South Wales No. 3661
- Member of the Association of Core Process Psychotherapy
I have supervised psychotherapists and counsellors, both individually and group, for the last 15 years. I attended a number of training programmes organised by the Karuna Institute. I underwent training with Michael Carroll, whose book, “Counselling Supervision”, has been an important guide to structuring the supervision I offer. As a supervisor I’m eclectic: I shape my approach, as far as possible, to the clinical orientation of the therapist I’m supervising.
Professional Development
I have attended many training and professional development programs during the last thirty years. These have ranged from weekend workshops to longer programmes covering a wide spectrum of psychotherapeutic traditions and practices. These include Psychosynthesis, Incest Intervention, Gestalt, Psychodrama, Co-counselling, Birth-work, Primal therapy and Family Constellations.
My Clinical Approach
“Alone you must do it, but you cannot do it alone”: spoken by Herbert Mowrer.
When we feel unwell and alone with difficult or frightening experiences, being accompanied by a psychotherapist who joins with us in an empathic way that comes from personal experience is essential. Emotional and psychological pain is often brings a feeling of isolation, and the presence of a professional whose understanding attunes and unites with us is essential to the healing process.
My clinical approach begins with identifying presenting problems, which includes exploring and understanding their origins. Once we know what the problems are we construct a treatment plan to bring about healthy change. Fortunately our brain is plastic and is able to reshape and develop new neural pathways, more heathy habits and patterns of behaviour. Brain plasticity makes change an everpresent possibility throughout our lives. As the brain shapes the mind so the mind alters the brain; and this feedforward-feedback loop makes talk-therapy a very effective method of healing and change.
One of our greatest gifts is our ability to be creative and positive in the midst of challenge. At times that gift may be lost to us, and my work includes discovering a larger canvass that gives meaning to our experiences. Psychological and emotional difficulties offer an opportunity to heal our wounds, to learn and to grow. Finding and trusting our creative processes in the midst of crisis is an essential element of my clinical approach.
*The healing and self-management affects of meditation are now at the leading edge of psychotherapeutic treatment programs, particularly CBT. Neuroscience has now proven conclusively that meditation practice, Mindfulness, is hugely beneficial to the development of psychological and emotional health.
