Dr Anthony Leyland
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This professional is accepting new clients but may have a waitlist. Please enquire with them directly to discuss availability.
This professional is accepting new clients but may have a waitlist. Please enquire with them directly to discuss availability.
About me
I am a Psychodynamic Psychotherapist with over a decade of clinical experience. I draw on a background of working in the NHS and university mental health services to help the people I work with to talk about and find a way through a wide range of emotional and relationship problems.
People often come to see me when they are weary, frustrated and puzzled about themselves or their relationships (or both) - often having exhausted other sources of support and information. I always aim to meet patients from a place of care, respect, curiosity and humility. I do this in a spirit of both kindness and truth – after all, as the psychoanalyst Hanna Segal said: “truth without kindness is not truth; kindness without truth is not kindness”.
What is psychodynamic psychotherapy? Psychotherapy is always tailored to the individual; there are no off-the-peg solutions. That said, it is broadly the case that psychodynamic psychotherapy will help you to: see yourself more clearly and understand yourself better; get beneath the surface-level problems to the roots of your difficulties; make use of this information to inform changes in how you relate to yourself and others in the here and now.
What happens in this sort of therapy? In practice, if we work together in psychotherapy you will be invited to speak about and reflect on your thoughts and feelings, so that we can identify and explore the most important concerns and preoccupations that have brought you to therapy. I do not judge or impose anything on you, but neither am I passive and “just listening”. I aim to strike an appropriate and helpful balance between support, encouragement and challenge. Greater awareness and understanding of your situation gives you choices – part of the work usually involves thinking about how to make some useof this information.
As mentioned above, this is always based on you as an individual: so for example, approaches that might be helpful for a neurotypical person may not be so appropriate for someone who is neurodiverse.
How long does therapy take? The approach I take is to say that therapy should not take longer than it needs to, but that – being realistic – sometimes it needs to take longer than we would like it to. As a guide: work on mild problems of recent onset is likely to be concluded more quickly than diffuse, severe or longstanding difficulties. In practice, I would say that in this form of therapy, my patients usually come once or twice-weekly, probably for months rather than weeks, and often on a longer-term basis (i.e. a year, maybe two, sometimes more). Having said this, patients are free to come for as many or as few sessions as they wish, and I am respectful of the fact that it is the patient's prerogative to decide when they are ready to finish.
Who do I work with? I work with adults (18 years and over) who have a wide range of common emotional and relationship problems. Within the limitations of my own frame of reference, I am open to working with people irrespective of age, race, class, culture, gender identity, marital status, physical ability, religion or sexual orientation.
Where do I work? My practice is located in private, comfortable therapy rooms in Salisbury, Wiltshire; I also work in Southampton but I am not currently taking on any new patients in my Southampton practice.
Training, qualifications & experience
Training and Model of Practice
I am registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC), one of the principal national psychotherapy training and registering bodies. This means that you can be confident that I have had a long and rigorous training (four years of study and assessed clinical practice, plus many years of personal psychotherapy), and that I am committed to working within a robust code of ethics. I am a qualified clinical supervisor, and I have a longstanding involvement with teaching and training in counselling and psychotherapy education.
Experience
My previous clinical experience – in addition to private practice:
- Senior Counsellor in NHS primary care
- Honorary Psychotherapist in NHS secondary care
- Counsellor and Supervisor in Higher Education
- Counsellor and Supervisor in the Charity Sector
Work in Counselling and Psychotherapy Education:
• I work as an Academic Tutor and External Examiner for several organisations.
Qualifications
- BPC-Accredited Diploma in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
- Certificate in Psychodynamic Supervision
- BACP-Accredited Diploma in Psychodynamic Counselling
- BA, MA, PhD in English Literature
I am currently undertaking additional advanced clinical training in STPP (Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy).
I am always learning and evolving as a practitioner, and as part of this I access clinical supervision, and regular and appropriate CPD.
Member organisations
Being registered/accredited with a professional body means an individual must have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by their member organisation.
The British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) is a professional association, representing the profession of psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
The organisation is itself made up of fourteen member organisations and BPC accredits the trainings of its member organisations. An individual who qualifies from one of these trainings is then eligible for entry into the BPC's register.
BPC registrants are governed by a code of ethics, a policy of continuing professional development, a statement on confidentiality and a complaints procedure. The BPC is a Member Society of the European Federation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in the Public Sector (EFPP). Accredited by the Professional Standards Authority.
Accredited register membership
The Accredited Register Scheme was set up in 2013 by the Department of Health (DoH) as a way to recognise organisations that hold voluntary registers which meet certain standards. These standards are set by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).
This therapist has indicated that they belong to an Accredited Register.
Areas of counselling I deal with
Therapies offered
Fees
£65.00 per session
Additional information
My standard fee is £65 per session (50 minutes).
When I work
I will have some availability in Salisbury from June.
However, I am not currently taking on new patients in Southampton.
PLEASE NOTE: All appointments are on weekdays, within office hours.
Further information
Please contact me to arrange a free 15-minute telephone consultation, which allows us to have a brief conversation about your reasons for seeking therapy, and allows me to assess whether I may be able to help. Then, if you would like to proceed to the next step, we would meet for an initial consultation (90 minutes) in which we could get a clearer picture of the problem you would like to work on, and get a sense of what it might be like to work together. After that – if we both agree – we will commence ongoing sessions (either open-ended or for a fixed period of time); you will usually be offered a weekly appointment – at the same time and place each week.
Please note that I respond to messages as soon as possible. This is usually within 24 hours (on week days) but occasionally may be longer if I am out of town, or during holiday periods.
