Janet Fernando
"Working with people from different theoretical backgrounds helped me develop a good understanding of other ways of working."
Course
Supervision and Consultation: Psychotherapeutic and Organisational ApproachesGraduation year
2012What attracted you to the University of Surrey?
I wanted to develop my supervision skills and I wanted to engage in research. The course matched my needs well.
What is your strongest memory of your time at Surrey – what do you picture first when you think of being here?
Being in attractive and peaceful surroundings and welcomed as a ‘mature’ learner.
What were the best things about your course?
Working with people from different theoretical backgrounds. I am a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and studying alongside those trained in other therapeutic models (e.g. systemic and cognitive behaviour) helped me develop a good understanding of other ways of working.
While I was at Surrey I was working as a Consultant Psychotherapist in the NHS. The course was highly relevant and particularly helpful in thinking about organisational dynamics in an ever changing work situation.
What do you do now and what do you find most enjoyable about your line of work?
After more than 25 years in the NHS I left in December 2014. I currently work as a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist in private practice, a freelance supervisor, for the Albany Trust (an organisation that works with the LGBT community and offers honorary placements to counsellors and psychotherapists) and a freelance psychotherapist for SignHealth (an organisation that offers therapy in British Sign Language to Deaf people).
I am now doing what I enjoy most: working with patients, offering supervision and contributing to training programmes and I am on a training committee for trainee psychotherapists.
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