Neil Austin

I am a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist and adult psychoanalytic psychotherapist with over 25 years’ experience of working with children, adolescents and adults with a wide range of emotional and psychiatric difficulties.

Alongside working for many years in part-time private practice, I am head of child and adolescent psychotherapy and a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist  at Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Trust, the main London’s children’s hospital. In addition to leading the child and adolescent psychotherapy team based on the inpatient psychiatric unit there, I am involved in the  hospital-wide  paediatric liaison service.

I therefore have extensive experience with more complex and severe mental health disorders, having worked in a variety of child and adolescent psychiatric and psychotherapeutic inpatient and outpatient settings.

In the last decade or so, I have also developed a keen interest in the psychotherapy of mind/body difficulties including somatic function disorders and eating disorders, which are the clinical specialism of my unit at Great Ormond Street.

My clinical research, teaching and clinical supervision interests include the development of reflective capacity in children and adolescents and adapting mentalisation-based techniques in time-limited treatments for young people who struggle significantly to reflect upon and verbalise their thoughts and feelings.

I work with a wide range of presenting difficulties in my private practice at Queen Anne Street, from adjustment and relationship difficulties at school or home, to anxiety and low mood, eating and somatic conditions and problems of emotional regulation.

Whatever the presenting problem or symptom needing to be addressed, healthy overall emotional development is always the priority: namely, to help a young person who is struggling to maintain their self esteem and sense of agency to reach a point where they can be confident of their own ability to keep going forwards, to learn and to thrive.

I assess children and teenagers over four sessions, following an initial parent consultation. A further parent meeting takes place afterwards, at which I offer feedback and discuss how best to proceed. Older teenagers sometimes come along in their own right, as do young adults.

I work flexibly according to individual need, from a few consultations through to longer term work. I value liaison with other professionals whenever it is in a child’s best interests, for example with schools, psychiatrists, neurodevelopmental psychologists and educational consultants.

I am registered with the Association of Child Psychotherapists