Meet Our Supervisors

Alison Bruce, is a Child, Adolescent and Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. She has worked clinically in both public and private sectors in New York City and London. She has been a visiting clinician and lecturer at Tavistock Relationships, has taught and supervised for Masters programs at New York and Birkbeck University as well as co-led work discussion groups for the Association of Child Psychotherapists. She currently is a seminar lead and tutor for The Tavistock and Portman Trust and runs a parent/ infant group project in White City. She has an Independent practice in West London.

Sarah qualified as an ACP Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist and later as an Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. She worked as a child psychotherapist in schools, social care teams and a children’s psychiatric inpatient unit before settling in NHS CAMHS. A long-term enthusiasm for infant observation training and teaching, developed a particular interest in focused short-term work with complex Under 5s and their parents. She is the author of Understanding Your One Year Old (Tavistock Clinic Series), which highlights the emotional preoccupations of children this age and explores the crucial role of relationships and parenting.

Alongside a conviction about the value of early intervention grew a passion to translate this need into NHS service provision. In 2016 she began working with likeminded NHS clinicians, commissioners and partner agencies, to develop NHS Under 5s Services in various London boroughs. These Services, accessed in family hubs and children’s centres, are targeted for complex Under 5s families, and offer consultation and reflective space to staff.

After 30 years in the NHS, she now works in private practice with children, young people and adults. She does supervision and consultation and teaches on various courses including the Tavistock child psychotherapy training.

I’m passionate about working with parents & babies/toddlers and helping them to understand and improve their emotional/relational difficulties. Today we know the impact that early intervention can have on the baby’s future development and the long-lasting effect on the next generation. This is the driving motive for continuing my work in this field and helping other professionals with this kind of work. Supervision can bring a different perspective for the supervisee, enabling better understanding and promoting effective ways of working with parents and babies.

I am a qualified Adult and Psychoanalytic Parent-Infant Psychotherapist. I have worked for various Perinatal Services, Local Authorities, CAMHS and The Anna Freud Centre; collaborating with Early Years, Complex Needs and Maternity Services. I am a lecturer and trainer in the field of infant mental health, PIP and affective neuroscience. I am also particularly interested in group work with parents and babies/toddlers and parenting court assessment.

Registered with BPC, BACP and UKRCP.

I am an experienced Child Psychotherapist having trained at the Tavistock Clinic in London over 20 years ago.

I worked in CAMHS for over 30 years – the last 12 in an Infant Mental Health Team.

I am now part of a Perinatal team in Devon providing parent-infant psychotherapy and supporting the team with consultation and supervision.

I also provide supervision to other teams and individuals who are working with mums and babies.

I am fascinated by babies and what they can let us know about how things are going for them and then helping the people around them to understand them too, be it parents or professionals.

I feel supervision can help people to understand what may be going on in the dynamic between themselves and the people they are working with.

I initially trained as an adult psychotherapist. I am also a BPC Psychoanalytic Parent-Infant psychotherapist (PPIP) trained at the Anna Freud Centre. Currently I supervise students on the British Psychotherapy Foundation (BPF) PPIP training. I am also a mentor for APPCIOS mentoring members who want to gain BPC membership.

I have a qualification in psychodynamic clinical supervision and have supervised many adult psychotherapists, and those working in schools with children and young families in Children’s centres.

My background is in under 5’s work where I have worked in Family Centres and Children’s centres – initially as a social worker and then as a psychotherapist and PPIP. Currently, as well as working privately as an adult psychotherapist, I work for various organisations providing PPIP and PPIP supervision. My passion for Parent-Infant work developed partly from recognising that many of my patient’s difficulties stemmed from their earliest infant experiences, and also because I heard so many parents telling me that they had experienced post-natal depression for the first two years of their child’s life.

I see clinical supervision as a collaborative and creative process between supervisee and supervisor. My aim is to facilitate a thoughtful working relationship between us so that we can think safely about the impact of the client/patient or family on us and vice-versa. This often leads onto thinking about what this may be telling us about what might be happening in the minds of both parents and babies. I also acknowledge the systemic and relational impact of the organisation in which the supervisee is working.

I am a Tavistock Clinic trained child and adolescent psychotherapist, couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist and more recently qualified as an adult psychodynamic psychotherapist through Tavistock Relationships. Throughout my working life, I have specialised in the area of perinatal mental health, co-founding The Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Service at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital in 1992. I worked there for over twenty years, before moving into private practice, where I continue to work with couples and their new baby.

My doctoral research explored the area of perinatal loss and traumatic delivery, in particular the mother’s state of mind when she gives birth to the next baby following the loss of a baby. I have taught, supervised and published papers in the area of perinatal mental health.

The importance of the couple relationship as parents adjust to the birth of their new baby remains at the centre of my work.

Dr Nick Sanderson BA (Hons), PGDip, PGDip, D. Psych. Psych is Lead Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and Parent-Infant Psychotherapist, Operational Lead North Bedfordshire Early Years Service, Bedfordshire CAMHS, East London Foundation Trust.

Nick has worked as a psychotherapist in Bedfordshire CAMHS for over twenty years in various roles. As part of the National Transformation Plans for the NHS Nick set up the Early Years (EYS) Service in 2017, a specialist infant and pre-school aged mental health service for the North and Central Bedfordshire areas. EYS provides psychoanalytic parent-infant psychotherapies (PPIP), parent-infant group psychotherapies, individual child psychotherapies and Watch Me Play interventions.

Valérie Mortin is a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and a Parent and Infant Psychotherapist and an under-fives specialist.
She trained at the BPF and at Peckham CAMHS & Kings College Hospital. Post training, Valérie has worked with a bereavement charity (Winston’s Wish) and a foster care agency as well as in CAMHS in England & Wales. Since 2017, she has been working with an award-winning Parent & Infant Relationship Service team (PAIRS) in the South London & Maudsley Trust (SLAM).

Valérie has presented papers on early years at international conferences and delivered training in the UK and abroad. She designed and taught the first year of life module for the MSc students on the BPF Birkbeck course and for the past 4 years has been running their online Infant Observation seminars.

She is passionate about infant mental health, parenting and supporting front line staff working with infants and parents.

Heather Stewart is a retired Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and former Chair of the Association of Child Psychotherapists. She has extensive experience of working in the NHS as well as in education and established Under 5s Services in Dudley and Walsall CAMHS. She believes passionately in the importance of supporting early parent-infant relationships and offering short term interventions to build positive relationships in families and to prevent perceived presenting problems in children and their parents from becoming entrenched.

Since retirement, Heather has mainly been working as a supervisor, including supervision of a range of clinicians working in CAMHS and of child psychotherapy trainees undertaking intensive training cases. She has remained involved with the Under 5s clinics in the Black Country, continuing to provide supervision and for a while, stepping in to work directly with families. She has been working with NCSPIR since May 2024 and has really valued the opportunity to offer a reflective space to those working with parent-infant relationships in family hubs across the country.

I am a qualified Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist. I trained at the Northern School of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy in Leeds and am accredited by the Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP). I am currently completing the Advanced Parent-Infant Therapist training with OXPIP.

I have worked therapeutically with children, young people and families for over seven years in a variety of NHS settings and in independent practice. Clinically trained in CAMHS, I am experienced in supporting children and young people aged 0-25 to work through a wide range of complex difficulties including depression, anxiety, gender dysphoria, eating disorders, separation anxiety, self-harm and complex trauma.

On qualifying, I took up the role of Parent-Infant Psychotherapist in Rotherham Perinatal Team where I worked with parent-infant dyads and families struggling with mental health and relational difficulties through pregnancy and postnatally. I now work for North Tees Perinatal Service where I offer parents and carers support in developing their relationship with their infant through a range of therapeutic interventions including Parent-Infant Psychotherapy, Watch, Wait and Wonder, Watch Me Play! and Circle of Security Parenting.

I work in attachment-focussed, trauma-informed ways, holding in mind the unique history and heritage each member of the family brings. I am experienced in working with children, young people and parents who experience the world in neurologically diverse ways. I bring a rich understanding of early infancy, childhood development, adolescence, parenthood, parental couple dynamics and children’s emotional experience of family relationships to my clinical and supervisory work.

I began my professional life as a lecturer in Modern Languages. My doctoral thesis focuses on concepts of Self-Other relations in twentieth-century French literature and philosophy. My postdoctoral research investigated the relationship between complex trauma and writing in Holocaust and genocide survivor testimonies. I went on to train and work as a secondary teacher: a time which deepened my understanding of the profound emotional struggles adolescents face. This time developed in me a life-changing desire to work therapeutically with children.

Alongside my perinatal role, I continue to work as a Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist in independent practice at The Anchor Practice, Edinburgh. I also offer supervision to a wide-range of MDT, partner agency colleagues and doctoral students training in Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy.

“It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found”- D.W. Winnicott

I believe psychotherapy and counselling is an art – and an art of holding, containing, exploring and making sense of one’s internal and external worlds. I provide compassionate, and creative analytical therapeutic support for those experiencing psychic suffering, distress and emotional pain.

It is my passionate belief that when we support mothers, fathers, grandparents and carers with assurance, empathy, trust, compassion, knowledge and security we provide psychotherapeutic opportunities for the carer/mother and baby to experience new encounters of joy, wonder and compassion.

Dr Sylvie Laura Simonds (MBACP ACCRED reg number 385429) is trained as an adult psychotherapist and qualified parent-infant psychotherapist. She works for the NHS in a perinatal team as a parent infant psychotherapist in addition to having a private practice.

Carol O’Connor is a Child Psychotherapist based in Glasgow. Carol trained as a Child Psychotherapist in New Zealand, worked as senior Child Psychotherapist in Cahms services before moving to the UK. Carol is a member of the British Association of Child Psychotherapists, and gained a Doctorate in Clinical Studies at Exeter University in 2022. In London Carol worked in a community mental health team providing support to schools and nurseries for 8 years. After moving to Scotland Carol has been involved in teaching on a 10 week infant mental health for Health visitors and Social Workers. Funding became available in 2021 for a two year period to offer training and support to third sector staff working with infants and their families. Many of the staff worked in remote areas where families did not have access to resources available in urban areas, and the online sessions provided an opportunity to be able to share work with colleagues working with babies and infants and their families and to discuss their daily work and its challenges.