Karen Partridge

Course Lead, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Systemic Psychotherapist

Karen Partridge, PhD, MSc, BSc (Hons), AFBPsS, C Psychol, Dip ST, UKCP and HCPC Registered, is a consultant clinical psychologist and systemic psychotherapist currently working as Head of Systemic Psychotherapy at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust and in private practice.

She has worked for over 35 years in the NHS, beginning her career in learning disabilities and adult mental health where she carried out PhD research into organisational change in hospitals. She explored the effect of staff training and organisational interventions in long stay hospitals for people with learning disabilities from an ecological and systemic perspective. This led to an ongoing commitment to staff training, in which she remains passionate about finding ways to honour the individual client and staff member and resist institutional practices.

She completed systemic training at the KCC Foundation where she worked as a tutor for many years and latterly as Co-Director. Karen trains and supervises health and social care professionals across a wide range of settings and client groups. She works with children, families, couples, work groups, organisations and in the community. She teaches and supervises professionals and is interested in consultation and training in staff groups and organisations and in the interface between therapy, community and organisational interventions, action research and social justice.

She is an Associate Member of the Taos Institute. Karen’s interests include narrative approaches and social constructionism, discourses in training and supervision, reflexivity and positioning, art, music, Buddhism, mindfulness and the application of systemic ideas in organisational settings.