Lynn Abbott - Psychotherapist

I started my career in Counselling and Psychotherapy as a volunteer counsellor working in a service for young people. This was a ‘Person Centered’ counselling agency. The work with clients focused on helping them to think about their day to day problems, to access their feelings about these issues, and to make the necessary changes to address these difficulties.  

I found this work really fascinating and rewarding, and it spurred me on to do a post-graduate Diploma in Counselling at the University of Aston. This was an integrative training, and it included a module on Psychodynamic counselling.  This way of thinking made a lot of sense to me.  This was because I had become aware, both for myself, and for the clients I was working with, that people were often pre-occupied  with attachment and developmental issues stemming from childhood, which were having an ongoing negative impact on their sense of themselves, and on their expectations of how they might be seen and treated by others.  They often described feeling stuck in a repeated pattern of behaviour which was unhelpful, or even destructive, towards themselves and/or the nature of their relationships with others.  An example of this is that they may have had a strong desire to make a good and loving relationship with someone, but to have ended up being in a series of abusive relationships.   They may have been aware, at a cognitive level, that they had a poor opinion of themselves, and that consequently, they  perhaps did not feel entitled to be treated well. But they were often puzzled as to why they felt this way, and why they were unable to alter this belief and feeling.  It became clearer to me that the origin of these difficulties, and therefore the key to addressing them, lay not in the conscious mind, but in the unconscious mind. I discovered that ‘hooking up’ these deep-seated beliefs and dynamics into their conscious awareness, seemed to make them accessible to being thought about, felt about, and therefore more amenable to change. This understanding of the power of the unconscious mind, was really interesting and exciting to me, and I was drawn to do more training in this area, and also to go into Analytical therapy myself.

Many years later, when I was working in the NHS as a counsellor, I became aware of a Psychoanalytic training based at the Bowlby Centre in London, which was strongly influenced by Attachment theory. I felt a strong need to do this training, and the wonder and excitement of what I learnt during my time there kept me going through the 6 years it took me to qualify as an Attachment-Based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist.

In my NHS role, I did the Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy training, and went on to gain accreditation in this approach. I have found this  therapy to be effective for people; and I am very pleased that it is being provided in NHS services, for those people who both need, and can work with, a Psychodynamic approach.

I have now retired from the NHS, and I am working solely in private practice, providing both of these therapies to my clients/patients.     

I have always found my work very satisfying and humbling.  I continue to be amazed by the courage, the level of trust,  and the determination people show, in sharing and tackling their difficulties in therapy; and by what they are able to achieve in terms of their understanding of themselves, and their ability to bring about positive changes, and to move forwards in life.   

I am registered with UKCP as an Attachment-Based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, and accredited by BPC as a Dynamic Interpersonal Therapist. I am also a Clinical Associate member of WMIP. 

I have undertaken additional training in Systemic family therapy and Cognitive Analytic Therapy. 

I am committed to continuing to develop my knowledge and skills as a therapist through having regular clinical supervision, attending relevant training and conferences, and networking with colleagues.