Dr Soren Petter

Soren Petter is the founder of PsychWise Associates, he is a Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Consultant, Researcher, Supervisor and University lecturer. 

His expertise in helping individual people as well as organisations in distress spans over the past 25 years, with experience in the German Health- and Social Care sector; as well as psycho-social interventions, mental health consultancy and psycho-education in East and West Africa. He also worked in the US in traumatic grief and bereavement as consequences of the early days of HIV/AIDS. For the past 20 years he has mostly worked in the United Kingdom, in the National Health service (NHS), and as a provider for private health providers such as AXA, Bupa, Aviva, Cigna, Allianz amongst others. Within there he also worked in a private sector Psychological and Psychiatric Consultancy, where he was a permanent  member of the Clinical Advisory Board for 10 years, and designed and delivered bespoke stress prevention and resilience training, interventions and consultancy to large corporate organisations. 
 
Having studied in both Germany and the UK, he is also a visiting academic, researcher and trainer at a variety of UK universities, and publishes research in his area of expertise. He was a senior faculty member at Regents University London, and is currently a visiting lecturer at City University London, the University of Surrey and the University of East London. Within there he draws a lot from his expertise in trauma and severe mental health problems, which he gained over 15 years of working in open and closed NHS psychiatric wards, as well as mental health crisis teams and community mental health teams. 
 
In terms of clinical approaches, Dr Petter strongly believes in salutogenic (‘origin of health’ / health-promoting) models, these are approaches that foster holistic health and a sense of personal and group coherence, rather than approaches that target mere symptom reduction. Having trained in phenomenology, psychoanalysis, existential analysis, cognitive behavioural as well as systemic models, he combines these models into interventions that specifically target the traumatic aspects of the experiences that cause people to be distressed, compulsive, impulsive or emotionally dysregulated, including sexual and relational difficulties. He is also a ReAttach practitioner as well as EMDR trained, using these for specific trauma interventions in GAD, OCD, ADHD, PTSD and personality disorders. He works with both individuals, couples and families

Current appointments:

Psychwise Associates Ltd:  Director 

City University London: Visiting Lecturer in Advanced Treatment Modalities

University Of East London UEL: Visiting Lecturer in Sexual Dysfunctions & Compulsivities

University of Surrey: Visiting Lecturer in Sexual Dysfunctions & Compulsivities

University of Gloucestershire:  Research Supervisor in Organisational Salutogenesis

 

Academic / Clinical training:

University of Essex:  Doctor of Counselling Psychology, 2007-2010

University of Sheffield:  PG Diploma Psychotherapy, 2005-2007

Regents University London:  Post MA Diploma Counselling Psychology, 2003-2004

Regents University London:  MA Counselling Psychology 2001-2003

University of Surrey:  BSc Hons Psychology 1998-2001

University of Duesseldorf:  Pedagogy, 1996-1998

Reattach Therapy Institute:  Diploma Practitioner, Master 2017

Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre:  CBT for Trauma and PTSD, 2011

Meriden West Midlands School:  Behavioural Family Interventions for Psychosis, 2010

Richman EMDR Training:  EMDR Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing Level I, II & III (Completion), 2019-2020

EMDR UK Training: Attachment Informed Integrative EMDR, 2020

EMDR Services LTD: EMDR for Schizophrenia & other Psychoses. 2020

Memberships:

British Psychological Society: CPsychol, Charted Psychologist, reg 096811

AFBPsS, Associate Fellow British Psychological Society

The Science Council: CSci, Chartered Scientist, reg 118/096811

Health & Care Professions Council: Practitioner Psychologist, reg PYL18165

UK Council of Psychotherapy: Full Registered Member, reg 01859727

UKCP Universities Training College:  Full Clinical Member

European Federation of Psychologists: EuroPsy, European Psychologist, UK-12335-201709

EMDR UK: Full Member

Previous appointments:

NHS East London Foundation Trust: Highly Specialist Psychologist in Homerton Hospital, Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit; Community Mental Health Team, Acute Wards Liaison Psychologist, 2007-2012

NHS BEH Mental Health Trust: Specialist Psychologist, St Ann’s Hospital, Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit, Acute wards Liaison Psychologist, 2004-2007

NHS East London & City MH Trust: Trainee Psychologist Newham Psychology Service, Psychosexual Therapy, HIV, Erectile Dysfunction & Vaginism, Couples Therapy for Sexual Problems, Systemic Therapy Consultation Enduring Mental Health Problems, 2002-2004

NHS Camden & Islington MH Trust: Assistant Psychologist in Royal Free Hampstead in Mental Health Crisis and Outreach Team, 2001-2002

ReAttach International Foundation: Board Representative UK, 2017-2018

Psychiatric & Psychological Consultant Services PPCS LTD London: Consultant Psychologist for Individual and Couples, Organisational Stress Management Consultant, permanent Clinical Advisory Board Member, 2005-2016

Bijilo Medical Centre West Africa: Consultant Psychologist Mental Health, 2011-2013

Therapedia London: Consultant Psychologist, 2010-2014

Regents University London: Faculty Member, Senior Lecturer, Doctoral Examiner and Lecturer, Clinical and Research supervisor, 2006-2013

University of Hertfordshire: Visiting Lecturer in Phenomenological Concepts of Psychosis, 2010-2012

The Marylebone Centre for Therapy: Consultant Psychologist in individual and group therapy for Sexual compulsivity and addiction, 2003-2005

CPPD Counselling School: Clinical Training Supervisor, 2005-2006

MIND City & Hackney: Psychologist for Severe and Enduring Mental Health Problems, 2002-2004

Manhattan NY Centre Bridge Services:   HIV & AIDS Bereavement Psychology, 2000

Caritas Group Germany: Hospice and Geriatric Counsellor, 1996-1998

Research:

Petter, S. (2011). Multimodal Interventions for Pre- and Co-morbid Shame. Lambert Academic Publishing

Evans, R. E., Petter, S. (2012). Identifying mitigating and challenging beliefs in dealing with threatening patients: An analysis of experiences of clinicians working in a psychiatric intensive care unit. Journal of Psychiatric Intensive Care Vol 8 (2)

Petter, S. (2014). Between Freedom and Belonging: Coaching on Covert Clinical Motivators. A presentation given at ‘The British Psychological Society’s  International Coaching Congress’, December 2014 London

Petter, S. (2018). Working with states of hyper-arousal in GAD, OCD, ADHD and Trauma: Positioning a transdiagnostic salutogenic model. A Key-Note Lecture given at the 1st International ReAttach Conference 2018, Netherlands, Eindhoven

Petter, S. (2018). Indication of ReAttach within modalities of therapy: An improved ontology? In: Weerkamp-Batholomeus, P. (Eds). Autism: Is there a place for ReAttach Therapy. Giovanni Fioriti Editore Publisher

Petter, S. (2020). Coherence, Predictability and Resources: Creating psycho-social interventions based on models of health – Salutogenesis- for People in Forced Migration. The University of East London Forced Migration Conference 2020, London, UK

https://psych-wise.co.uk.gridhosted.co.uk/research/ 

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