John is a training analyst at the Institute of Group Analysis, London. He serves on the organisation's teaching staff and teaches at other training institutes and university departments in the UK. He was Vice Chair of the Institute's Curriculum Committee for many years and in this capacity helped to design its teaching curriculum and edited and wrote the organisation's Training Handbook. He is now responsible for the supervising and evaluating dissertations in the Institute's Masters Degree programme at Birkbeck College, London University.
He is in private practice working with individuals, couples and groups. He has a particular interest in creativity and caters for a number of creative artists. His other areas of special interest include relationship problems and trauma. At the Group-Analytic Practice he has run couples groups for many years and is now working with Jane Haynes to apply this approach to the needs of couples with fertility problems. He was a Founding Trustee of the Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture where he established the Group Work Programme. He remains a Consultant Psychotherapist there and at the Traumatic Stress Clinic, University College, London. He was the editor of Robin Skynner's selected clinical work
His other institutional work has included: Secretary to The Group Analytic Society; Founding Member and Conference Organiser, Standing Committee for Couples in Trouble; Founding Member and Secretary, European Group Analytic Training Institutes Network; Founding Member and Chair, Sarajevo Charter.
Publications include:
1987: Selected papers of Robin Skynner Vol. 1: Explorations With Families: Group Analysis And Family Therapy , Methuen.
1988: Selected papers of Robin Skynner Vol. 2: Institutes And How To Survive Them: Theory And Practice of Mental Health Consultation, Methuen.
1993:The Language of the Group: Monologue, dialogue and discourse in group analysis in The Psyche and The Social World, edited by D. Brown and L. Zinkin, Routledge.
1993:The Reclamation of Space and Time: Psychotherapy with survivors of torture and organised violence in Proceedings of The Medical Foundation, Medical Foundation.
1995:A Group Analytic Approach To Forensic Psychotherapy in Forensic Psychotherapy, edited by C. Cordess and M. Cox, Jessica Kingsley, London.
2000:Group Methods in Adult Psychotherapy (written with Malcolm Pines) in The New Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry edited by M. Gelder et. al., OUP, Oxford.
2001:The Easy Hand: Problems of domestic violence in marital psychotherapy in The Bulletin of the Society for Psychoanalytic Marital Psychotherapy , July.
2001:The Social World of the Forsaken Psyche, in Group Analysis , December.
2002:My Father's Uncle Played The Mandolin: Reflections on the killing fields of Europe, in Mikbatz: Israeli Journal of Group Psychotherapy, Spring.
2004:Group analysis on war and peace: What can psychotherapy contribute to understanding the dynamics of terrorism, hatred and polarization? Keynote Address to the Congress of the Israeli Association for Group Psychotherapy, July 2002. Forthcoming in Mikbatz (Hebrew): Israeli Journal of Group Psychotherapy, Spring. And in Group Analysis (English).
2004:Process and Outcome Measures in Group Therapy for Survivors of Torture and Organised Violence (written with Paul Burns). Forthcoming in Special Edition of Group Analysis on Trauma, ed. Haim Weinberg.
Conference presentations awaiting publication include:
2001:Couples in Trouble: Therapeutic Options. Keynote Address, Conference of the University Psychiatric Hospital of Ljubljana, Slovenia, October.
2001:The Pair and The Person - Group Psychotherapy for Couples in Trouble: Conference in Memory of Robin Skynner, Group Analytic Practice, November.
2003:Trauma, its agents and its victims: towards a group perspective in analysis and treatment. Presentation to the International Association of Group Psychotherapy, Istanbul, August.
2003:Silence that brings words and words that bring silence: A group-analytic exploration of the meanings and messages of silence in psychotherapy and in life. Keynote Address, Conference of the University Psychiatric Hospital of Ljubljana, Slovenia, October.
2004:The Pair and The Person: A Group-Analytic Approach to Intimacy and its Problems. Workshop Presentation to the Conference of the American Group Psychotherapy Association, New York, February.
Personal interests:
John's personal interests include writing, landscape photography and the study of Jewish history. His concerns about human rights led to his early deportation from South Africa, his country of birth, whilst he was a student in 1969. More recently, he has had several photographic exhibitions, the largest of which was at Limmud: Images of The Sacred in The Natural World, Nottingham 2001. He spends time with his family including his daughter, son-in-law and two grand-children; in his garden in Highgate where part of his Practice is located; and trekking in remote places with his camera. He plans to continue with and extend his photography.
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