About us

We are a partnership of three experienced Systemic Family Psychotherapists with particular expertise in assessment, risk assessment, care planning and delivering therapeutic interventions for those who use violence and abuse in the context of family and intimate relationships, and those who are harmed by it. We work with families, parents and children, and couples.

We have approaching fifty years of experience working with parents and children involved in safeguarding and child protection processes. You can view our mini-biographies here, and our CVs are available on request.

We work with those seeking to separate safely from a partner who may also be a co-parent, with couples who may also be parents and who wish to continue living together without violence, either through choice, or because they have other good reasons not to separate.

Our minimum requirement to work safely is a triad consisting of

1. a client or clients,
2. an outside agency or a mutually trusted and reliable independent party, and
3. ourselves, Relational Third.

We are influenced by the work of Professor Arlene Vetere and Jan Cooper MBE, who believe that in contexts where violence and abuse has occurred, a safe context for therapy is best achieved through the presence of a “stable third”. For the relationship between any two of these parties, the other party acts as a stable third.

We have all lived, studied and worked in London for many years, working within very diverse communities. We take seriously the importance of our clients’ lived experience, including experiences of racism, discrimination, prejudice, and oppression.

We think it is important to ask for our clients’ permission to talk about these experiences in therapy. We have been fortunate and privileged that our clients have shared their stories with us. We think that the effect of our words and actions on others is more important than the intentions behind them, and we are committed to taking full responsibility for our actions. We are committed to taking responsibility for our own ‘white privilege’ in our direct work with clients, and for challenging structured and organisational racism in our places of work. We take our responsibility to be anti-racist seriously, and we actively seek ways to be held accountable for our words and actions.

We are experienced at working with interpreters and have developed our understanding of the complexities of working across language, cultures, religion, gender, sexuality, age and ability. We are committed to continually listening, learning, and supporting research in the communities we work within.