Quentin Spender

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I am a retired Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, with over 25 years’ experience in the NHS. I am also a qualified Family Therapist. My skills are with children aged 0 to 18 and their families, with almost any presenting problems.

As a psychiatrist, I am used to doing thorough assessments, and prescribing medication.

As a Family Therapist, I am used to exploring issues through talking, either with several people from the same family, or one person. When doing individual counselling, I tend to adopt a 'Rogerian' approach — person-centred counselling.

I will readily refer to colleagues for more specialist individual therapy, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). I can be flexible about venues and appointment times: for instance, as Covid gets slightly better, I have again begun to offer home visits, and face-to-face appointments in my clinic.

Please note that, because my training is with under-18s, I do not generally see anyone over 18 for initial assessment.  If I start seeing someone at the age of 16-17, then I may continue seeing them post-18th birthday if this seems appropriate.