Tutors & Staff

Our Tutors

Paul Grantham
Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Founder and Director of SDS Seminars

Paul Grantham, Chartered Clinical Psychologist, a Senior Associate of The Royal Society of Medicine, Accredited CBT Therapist. He is the Founder and Director of SDS Ltd and one of the most popular and inspirational tutors in the field of psychological skills training.

Dr Julia Budnik
MD, PhD, Director of SDS Seminars Ltd

Julia is a medical doctor and a PhD with clinical, managerial and university teaching experience. She has worked overseas, in the NHS and privately. A qualified gastroenterologist, Julia has written extensively in the field. Her current interests lie in evidence based improvements to health and quality of life through psychological & behavioural change. Julia is also a children's author.

Prof Andrew Reeves
Professor in Counselling Professions and Mental Health at the University of Chester

Andrew is a Professor in Counselling Professions and Mental Health at the University of Chester. He is a BACP Senior Accredited Counsellor/Psychotherapist, an EMCC Senior Accredited Coach and an Accredited Coach Supervisor, and a Registered Social Worker. He has worked in private practice for over 25 years.

Dr Andrew Beck
Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Past President of BABCP

Dr Andrew Beck. Past President of BABCP, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester, lead on the Children and Families module of the Manchester Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and Senior Lecturer on the Children and Young People’s Talking Therapies programme, Member of the BABCP Scientific Committee and is the former Chair of the Equality and Culture Special Interest Group of the BABCP.

Prof Nuno Ferreira
PhD, CPsychol, AFBPsS, Associate Professor of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Nicosia, Cyprus

Dr Nuno Ferreira is an Associate Professor of Clinical Health Psychology at the University of Nicosia. He holds a Licenciature in Clinical Psychology from ISPA, Portugal, and a PhD in Clinical and Health Psychology from the University of Edinburgh.

Dr Chris Irons
Clinical Psychologist, Director of Balanced Minds

Dr Chris Irons is a clinical psychologist, researcher, writer and trainer specialising in Compassion Focused Therapy. He is co-director of Balanced Minds, a London based organisation providing compassion-focused psychological interventions for individuals and organisations. He also works for the Compassionate Mind Foundation, and as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Derby.

Eva Roussou
Consultant in Trauma-Informed Practice, Clinical & Counselling Psychologist, Systemic Psychotherapist & Clinical Supervisor

Eva Roussou is a Consultant in Trauma-Informed Practice, providing clinical supervision, training and organisational consultancy in the criminal justice, forensic mental health, social care, homelessness and the women’s sectors. She has designed and delivered training to professionals in the U.K. and abroad in a range of trauma-related subjects since 2007.

Prof Windy Dryden
Professor of Psychotherapeutic Studies

Windy Dryden, Emeritus Professor of Psychotherapeutic Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London was one of the first people in the UK to be trained in CBT, and was the first Professor of Counselling in the UK.The author or editor of 200 books and over 700 scholarly articles on CBT and Counselling he offers a uniquely informed perspective on CBT and psychotherapy.

Deanne Jade
Psychologist, Founder and Director of the National Centre for Eating Disorders (NCED)

Deanne is a psychologist who has worked with eating and weight problems for many years and has taught a generation of counsellors how to treat eating disorders such as compulsive eating, bulimia, anorexia and obesity.

Prof Tony Attwood
Clinical Psychologist, Professor at Griffith University in Australia and Strathclyde University in Scotland

Dr Tony Attwood, Clinical Psychologist, is the acknowledged world expert on therapy with autistic clients. Professor at both Griffith University in Australia and Strathclyde University in Scotland, he’s worked with an estimated 8000 clients with some form of autism diagnosis. He is author of innumerable peer reviewed studies and book chapters on autism. He’s also published 15 books in the field with sales topping 1 million, and titles translated into 28 languages. These include CBT to Help Young People with Asperger’s Syndrome to Understand and Express Affection: A Manual for Professionals (2013) and Exploring Depression, and Beating the Blues: A CBT Self-Help Guide to Understanding and Coping with Depression in Asperger’s Syndrome (2016).

Prof Raymond A. DiGiuseppe
Ph.D., ABPP, Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Institutional Review Board

Raymond A. DiGiuseppe, Ph.D., ABPP is Professor of Psychology at St. John's University in New York, and Director of Education at the Albert Ellis Institute

Prof Stephen Rollnick
Professor of clinical psychology at Cardiff University, co-founder of Motivational Interviewing

Professor Stephen Rollnick is best known as a co-founder of Motivational Interviewing. He is a Clinical Psychologist with many years of experience in service provision and in training of practitioners and an Honorary Distinguished Professor in the School of Medicine in Cardiff University, Wales, UK with a research record focused on good practice in efforts to promote change and behaviour change among patients, clients and the practitioners who serve them.

Deb Dana
LCSW, Clinician, Consultant and Lecturer

Deb Dana is an international expert in Polyvagal Theory from Maine, United States. She is a consultant to the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium in the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, a colleague and co-author of Stephen Porges.

Dr Rachel Freeth
M.D., Psychiatrist, Person-Centred Therapist

Dr Rachel Freeth worked as an NHS psychiatrist for over 25 years in a variety of mental health settings. For many years she combined this with working as a person-centred therapist in the voluntary sector but has recently developed a private therapy practice based in Gloucestershire.

Dr Michelle Garnett
MPsych(Clin) PhD MAPS MCCP, Founder and Director of Minds & Hearts

Dr Michelle Garnett PhD is a clinical psychologist and Founder and Director of Minds & Hearts, a clinic specialising in Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) in Australia. Michelle has co-authored six books on autism. Her recent book with Barb Cook is a seminal work on the female presentation, Spectrum Women: Walking to the Beat of Autism.

Linda Graham
MFT

Linda Graham, MFT, psychotherapist, trauma therapist and author in the San Francisco Bay Area, USA

Dr Jemma Hill
Senior Clinical Psychologist

Dr Jemma Hill is a Senior Clinical Psychologist. She has over 15 years experience of working in mental health in a variety of settings. She has worked with children and adolescents since 2015, within CAMHS, a Children’s Psychological Service and an inpatient unit, where she set up and facilitated the provision of a Dialectical Behavioural Therapy skills group. She currently works full time in a newly established CAMHS Autism Team, providing assessment and diagnosis for secondary school aged children across the East Lancashire footprint.

Lisa Anderson
Consultant Clinical Psychologist

Lisa Anderson is an HCPC registered Consultant Forensic Psychologist and Clinical Psychologist. She is also a fully accredited Cognitive Behavioural Therapist with BABCP. She has over 18 years’ experience as a clinician and an academic and has worked within child mental health and adult services, where she has provided assessment, interventions, and supervision in both the NHS and private sector. She has worked with children, adolescents, adults, young offenders, looked after children, homeless and asylum seekers. Lisa worked as a lecturer in Psychology for the University of Leicester where she has managed the multi-agency training service in child mental health across Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland. She was responsible for training 600-900 primary care staff per year for over 12 years and also taught postgraduate students. She is an associate Lecturer for University of Derby on the CYP Talking Therapies course. She is national trainer in child mental health, working closely with Universities and local councils.

Dr Hasan Waheed
Clinical Psychologist

Dr Hasan Waheed is a Clinical Psychologist and has worked with children, adolescents and families from diverse ethnic backgrounds across the North West and East of England.

Georgina Rush
BABCP accredited CBT Therapist, Lecturer at the GMMH Psychological Therapies Training Centre and Senior Mental Health Practitioner in a CAMHS service

Georgina Rush is a BABCP accredited CBT Therapist, Senior Mental Health Practitioner in a CAMHS service and a lecturer at the GMMH Psychological Therapies Training Centre , teaching on the Educational Mental Health Practitioner course.

Naomi Burrow
Senior Practitioner / Accredited Cognitive Behaviour Therapist

Naomi has worked for 8 years in a child and adolescent substance misuse service where she provided therapeutic work to young people, supervision to staff and training to outside agencies. In recent years she has trained as a Cognitive Behaviour Therapist as part of the CYP-Talking Therapies programme where she is now a supervisor in the Emotional Health in Schools team.

Dr Angela Latham
Consultant Clinical Psychologist

Dr Angela Latham is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist based in Cheshire and North Wales. She has extensive experience working in CAMHS and in early years in the Manchester area. She also has specialist skills in teaching and training having developed numerous training packages and held the position of CYP-Talking Therapies Parent Lead.

Dr Rebecca Linnell
Principal Clinical Psychologist

Dr Rebecca Linnell worked in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Manchester for over 10 years, in 2012 she joined the Psychological Therapies Training Centre in Salford to develop the CYP Talking Therapies programme, a Government initiative aiming to transform children’s mental health services. For many years she’s been involved in training mental health professionals, leading the CBT Pathway of the Postgraduate Diploma in Evidence-based Psychotherapies for Children and Young People.

Dr Runa Dawood
Clinical Psychologist & Chair of BPS Division of Clinical Psychology Minorities in Clinical Psychology Sub-Committee

Runa is a Community Mental Health Clinical Psychologist, Chair of the British Psychological Society, Division of Clinical Psychology Minorities Sub-Committee, and former Disabilities Lead for this committee.

Catherine Parker
Accredited CBT Therapist

Catherine Parker completed her intensive DBT training in 2001. She was a founder member of the Derbyshire DBT Service, delivering full programme DBT for over 15 years. Throughout her career as a psychotherapist, she has delivered DBT workshops within her NHS Trust and at local universities, sharing her practical experience of using DBT principles to treat a variety of diagnoses in both Talking Therapies and Community Mental Health settings. She has been the Chair of the DBT Special Interest Group of the BABCP since 2013, and has participated in a number of symposia and other events featuring DBT at the BABCP national conferences.

Marie Wassberg
Accredited CBT Therapist

Marie Wassberg qualified as a CBT therapist at Goldsmiths University, London, 2003. She is registered with the HCPC and Accredited with BABCP in the UK. Marie has Diploma in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), gained in 2010, where she trained with Dr Elizabeth Malmquist and Dr Anita Linnér (Sweden), as well as with Professor Alan Fruzzetti and Professor Jill Rathus (USA). She is also trained in Trauma Focused-CBT, including Supervisor training; Prolonged Exposure; and DBT for Schools (STEPS-A). Marie has been part of developing many DBT-informed programmes in different settings, mainly for children, adolescents and families, but also for young adults (18-25), both in Sweden and in England. In 2018 Marie offered support and DBT-informed training to a group of mothers in Mexico.

Dr Tom Werner
Consultant Psychiatrist

Tom Werner is a Locum Consultant Psychiatrist at South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. He trained and worked at the Centre for Anxiety Disorder and Trauma, Maudsley Hospital and in the Cognitive Therapies Division of City & Hackney’s Psychotherapy Department.

Dr Jeff Riggenbach
Ph.D., LPC

Dr Jeff Riggenbach is one of the most sought after tutors in North America in the area of CBT and personality disorders. Over the past 15 years he has developed and overseen CBT-based treatment programmes on Mood Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder at two different psychiatric hospitals. Dr Riggenbach trained at the Beck Institute of Cognitive Therapy and Research in Philadelphia, is a Diplomat of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy, and has presented in all 50 United States, Mexico, and Canada on topics related to CBT, DBT and Personality Dysfunction. He is also an author of two best-selling books, The Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) Toolbox: A Workbook for Clients and Clinicians (2012) and Borderline Personality Disorder Toolbox: A Practical Evidence-Based Guide to Regulating Intense Emotions (2016),

Our Staff

Michael Lucas
Office Administrator

"What I like most about working for SDS is assisting clients in furthering their personal development, which in turn helps the well-being of others."