Dr John Loewenthal
Every professional displayed on Counselling Directory has been independently verified by our team to ensure they have suitable credentials to practise.
This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
Hello, and welcome to my page. If you are facing difficulties in life, then I hope to be of therapeutic support and intervention. I am attentive to each person's unique experience of the world, including anxieties, frustrations, senses of loss, isolation, being misunderstood, unhappiness, or searching for something more. I have supported people facing various challenges from inner states to couple communication to life transitions and changes. Through an empathic and analytical approach, I provide a space and a relationship to explore how you are feeling and to arrive at new realisations and ways of being.
My therapy training is theoretically integrative, involving psychodynamic, humanistic, and cognitive-behavioural approaches. Psychodynamic therapy explores how personalities and behaviour are influenced by experiences and attachments earlier in life and brings unconscious drives and defences into awareness. Humanistic therapy helps people to grapple with their existence, from identities, aspirations, self-knowledge, and growth, to our mortality and limitations. Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) identifies and challenges unhelpful thought patterns and beliefs that may adversely affect how we experience and perceive the world. I draw variously upon such ideas, though I am mostly interested in you and what you have to say.
I work with people individually and as couples and families. In relational therapy, I ensure all parties feel heard and strive to cultivate mutual respect and healthy communication. By having meaningful conversations, including constructive arguments, relational therapy can empower all parties with greater clarity about who they are, individually and collectively, and where they are going in life. As your therapist, I will facilitate learning about each other’s worlds and how to avoid unhelpful patterns of behaviour.
My therapeutic work is informed by ongoing research and university teaching as an anthropologist. I am sensitive to how people’s lives are shaped by family, culture, psychology, and society and to the difficulties that people face in love, work, life, and death. I currently work at the Centre for Anthropology and Mental Health Research in Action at SOAS, University of London, developing educational content on the intersection of anthropology and mental health. At the University of Oxford, I teach a course, ‘What makes life meaningful? Perspectives from anthropology, and I am developing a new course, ‘Therapy as anthropology: engagements with the human condition’.
In my therapeutic practice, as well as research, teaching, and personal therapy, I continually explore the existential question, as put by Amartya Sen, 'ultimately, the focus has to be on what life we lead and what we can and cannot do, can and cannot be'. Influenced by humanistic approaches to psychotherapy, I err towards a hopeful and optimistic approach to human potential, even as I grapple each day with the struggles of life.
I see people for therapy in person and online with most of my availability on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. I am a registered member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP), and I abide by their ethical framework.
Please reach out for a free telephone consultation.
Training, qualifications & experience
- Registered Member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP)
- Diploma in Relational Counselling (Distinction) - The Spark Counselling Scotland
- Certificate in Counselling Skills - Edinburgh College/ Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland
- PhD Education - Thesis, 'Aspirations of university graduates: an ethnography in New York and Los Angeles' - Oxford Brookes University (funded Studentship)
- MA Anthropology and Education - Columbia University (Margaret Mead Fellow)
- BA (Hons) Archaeology and Anthropology (First Class Honours) - University of Oxford
I have taught and researched in the fields of anthropology and education at different university including the following roles:
- Tutor in Social Anthropology - Oxford University Department for Continuing Education (2017 -)
- Co-Convenor - European Network for Psychological Anthropology (2022 - 2026)
- Research Associate, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London (2024 -), Project, 'Anthropology, talking therapy, and education: intersections between theory and practice'
- Education and Training Officer, The Centre for Anthropology and Mental Health Research in Action (CAMHRA) - School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London (2024 -)
- Lecturer in Education - Keele University (2023-2024)
- Teaching Fellow in Education - University of Edinburgh (2021-2023)
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2022)
- Visiting Doctoral Student and Postdoctoral Researcher - Centro de Investigación de Estudios Avanzados, México (2019-2021) (I speak fluent Spanish)
- Visiting Scholar - New York University (2017-2018)
Member organisations
BACP is one of the UK’s leading professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy with around 60,000 members. The Association has several different categories of membership, including Student Member, Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP, Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Accred) and Senior Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Snr Acccred). Registered and accredited members are listed on the BACP Register, which shows that they have demonstrated BACP’s recommended standards for training, proficiency and ethical practice. The BACP Register was the first register of psychological therapists to be accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). Accredited and senior accredited membership are voluntary categories for members who choose to undertake a rigorous application and assessment process to demonstrate additional standards around practice, training and supervision. Individual members will have completed an appropriate counselling or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but they won’t appear on the BACP Register until they've demonstrated that they meet the standards for registration. Student members are still in the process of completing their training. All members are bound by the BACP Ethical Framework and a Professional Conduct Procedure.
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
£75.00 - £100.00
Additional information
Fees are £75 for individuals, £90 for couples, £100 for families involving more than two persons; I also offer concession rates.
