Anna Harvey

Senior Lecturer

Anna Harvey is a senior lecturer at the Tavistock and Portman Trust, teaching on the professional doctorate in social work. With 27 years of experience in child protection and social care, she leads modules on reflexivity, institutional observation, and psychosocial interventions, integrating psychoanalytic and ecological perspectives. Her teaching emphasizes self-awareness, therapeutic relationships, and systemic thinking. She supervises doctoral students, focusing on marginalised voices in social work. As a consultant, she trains professionals in reflective supervision.

Her awareness of the ecological crisis led to organizing a climate psychology conference and co-editing a special journal issue. She incorporates ecological metaphors into social work education, helping students understand complexity, adaptation, and systemic interconnections. Her research explores interconnection and hyper-individualism. Personally, she home-educates her son in ecology, evolution, and natural history, driven by a deep passion for the dynamic interplay between biotic and abiotic systems, shaping both social work and environmental awareness.  

Selected publications

Harvey, A., Manley, J., & Hickman, C. (2020). Ecology, psychoanalysis and global warming: present and future traumas. Journal of Social Work Practice, 34(4), 337–348. 

Harvey, A. (2020). Ecology, psychoanalysis, global warming and cats: fragmentation and interconnection. Journal of Social Work Practice, 34(4), 395–408. 

Harvey, A., & Henderson, F. (2014). Reflective Supervision for Child Protection Practice – Reaching Beneath the Surface. Journal of Social Work Practice, 28(3), 343–356.