about us
Dr Darren Bull is a medical doctor, graduating from Bart’s & The London with subsequent Psychiatry training within the Royal Free: a fusion of Psychiatric and Psychotherapy experience & training. Alongside working with street-marginalised groups and within Medium Secure Forensic Hospitals and Prison Psychiatry for over 15-years he become a BPC registrant as a Forensic Psychotherapist. Subsequently he moved to Perinatal Psychiatry where his particularly interest of infant well-being and mental health, through the lens of the parent-infant dyad, has developed further to include those under-5; supported by additional training at the Tavistock. His focus is on the impact of prenatal and early years on later outcomes for health and well-being bringing psychodynamic-psychoanalytic thinking to this work.
Deputy Chair of Trustees
Dr Alexander Ross is a psychodynamic psychotherapist working in an NHS community crisis service, in private practice and as a guest lecturer for London
South Bank University on their postgraduate Mental Health and Clinical Psychology course. He initially graduated as a medical doctor at the University of Bristol practising in North Devon before training in intercultural psychodynamic psychotherapy at the Tavistock. He has an interest in Meditation and is author of ”Meditation for Psychotherapists” published in 2024.
Secretary
John Shimwell is a psychotherapist, qualifying from Regent’s College (now University) in 2016. He has worked as a therapist for a charity in west London for the past 10 years, and worked with primary-school children in a deprived part of northwest London for three years with Place to Be. He has spent much of his adult life living and working outside the UK, mainly in the Middle East, where he worked for the World Health Organization, and in the United States.
Trustee
Nicky Denegri is a coach, trainer, and facilitator who has been working in business for many years developing people and businesses. She qualified as a Psychosynthesis-trained Counsellor in 2024 and has a private practice. She brings lived experience of suicide, both her parents having died by suicide, nine months apart, in 1992.
Alma Fridell was brought up on a farm in Sweden where her family looked after foster children and people from prison. She trained as an actress in Copenhagen and London, and has run a firm of decorators from 2008 to the present. Her primary interest is in the field of mental health care.
Trustee
Dr Naomi Low-Beer has extensive teamwork and leadership experience in clinical practice and medical education. Previously a consultant gynaecologist at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, she subsequently relocated to Singapore where, as Vice-Dean for Education, she led the development and delivery of a new undergraduate medical programme at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, a partnership between Imperial College London and Nanyang Technological University Singapore. Currently she is Founding Dean of Brunel Medical School. She has a passion for introducing evidence-informed innovation to create environments in which people can flourish.
Michael Knight was executive Chairman of Maytree’s Trustees for its first 10 years and, together with Paddy Bazeley its Director, conceived the Maytree model, brought about its implementation and practice, the house opening in 2002.
His first career was in investment, government, and banking prior to becoming an executive director of an industrial PLC. He then went on to become a management consultant, advising Boards on vision, values and strategy.
Concurrently, from being a Samaritan volunteer he trained in brief-term psychotherapy (CAT), qualifying in 1993. He held a position as a part-time senior therapist and supervisor in the NHS for many years, whilst also working in private practice. He is a former Trustee of UKCP.
He came back from retirement in 2023 to save Maytree from liquidation.
Judith Knight was a director and member of the Executive Board of Centaur Media PLC and played a key role in its growth over twenty-six years. She subsequently trained in counselling and psychotherapy and is a qualified forensic psychotherapist. Judith has extensive experience working in multiple NHS settings, including in the male and female prison estates. She currently works in private practice.
Patron
Senior Fellow at the Tavistock Institute, and Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis and Mental Health at Regent’s University. He is a Trustee, and Honorary Fellow and Director of Research at the Freud Museum; Honorary Fellow of UKCP; Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health; and Consultant in Psychology to The Bowlby Centre; and a former Chair of Society of Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists and of the British Society of Couple Psychotherapists and Counsellors.
Has a private practice as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and supervisor, speaks and lectures widely on psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, psychopathology, and related subjects, and is the author of many books in the field.
Patron
Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Education at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. For 40 years she was consultant gastroenterologist and physician at Barts and the London Hospital, and the Homerton University Hospital. A former President of the British Medical Association, the Royal Society of Medicine, the Medical Women’s Federation, the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund, and a founding non-executive director of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence,
She is renowned worldwide as co-founder and co-editor of the medical textbook “Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine” now in its 10th edition.
Patron
Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. After early years at St Mary’s hospital assessing and working with the high risk suicidal, his career was at the Portman Clinic before being appointed its Director, a position held until his retirement. His initial clinical interest was in self destructive acts moving to perverse acts, particularly those individuals who seek help for paedophilia. This clinical interest and experience provided the basis for consultative work, both clinical and organisational, with other institutions such as Medium and High Secure Hospitals, including offering reflective practice for clinical staff and managers.
Co-author with Donald Campbell of “Working in the Dark”, an essential text on suicidality.
Patron
Professor of Social Anthropology at SOAS and Director of the Centre for Anthropology and Mental Health Research. Prior to SOAS he worked as social development advisor to DFID and as Regional Representative for Oxfam for South India. Special and personal interest in psychiatric crisis, mental healthcare and therapeutic practices, and public policy. Chair of Haringey Suicide Prevention Group. Lead role in trials of Open Dialogue, a non-medical dialogical model for those in suicidal crisis.
Director of the Centre for Suicide Research at Oxford University and Consultant psychiatrist at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. For more than thirty years he and his research group have been conducting investigations concerning the causes, treatment, prevention and outcome of suicidal behaviour. He has published more than 400 papers and chapters and fifteen books.
Professor Hawton is co-editor of The International Handbook of Suicide and Attempted Suicide (2000, Wiley), editor of Prevention and Treatment of Suicidal Behaviour: From Science to Practice (2005, Oxford University Press), co-author of By Their Own Young Hand: Deliberate Self Harm and Suicidal Ideas in Adolescents (2006, Jessica Kingsley Publishers), and co-editor of Suicide (2012 Routledge). He is a member of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy Group for England, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Prevention of Suicide and Self-harm, and the US Suicide Research Strategy Task Force.Professor Hawton has received the Stengel Research Award from the International Association for Suicide Prevention (1995), the Dublin Career Research Award from the American Association of Suicidology (2000), the Research Award of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (2002) and a Life Achievement Award for outstanding contribution in research, treatment and teaching in the field of suicidology presented by the European Symposium of Suicide and Suicidal Behaviour (2012).
Patron
British journalist, broadcaster, political aide and author, best known for his work as Director of communications and strategy for Prime minister Tony Blair between 1997 and 2003.
Patron
An inspiring singer-songwriter whose Bangladeshi-Irish South Londoner identity and heartfelt lyrical honesty are keystones of her work. She is a soulful storyteller with a beguiling, timeless sound and is undoubtedly one of the most exciting artists to emerge in the British music scene. Labelled the one to watch by The Guardian, BBC Radio 1, Clash, Indie and Vogue, she has also been an outspoken campaigner for mental health. Her deeply felt connection with music and performing has helped her understand her own mental health in a complex way, and she has joined Maytree as a patron in the hope that her voice can help others talk with each other and seek help when it is needed.
Co-Founder & Patron
Co-Founder of Maytree in 2000, after career of 25 years with Central London Samaritans, where she became responsible for Caller Care c.1990, monitoring volunteer engagement with all callers, setting guidance on those at high risk and/or repeat callers, befriending many herself.
Dr. Rachel Gibbons is a medical doctor, psychoanalyst, group analyst, consultant psychiatrist and organisational consultant. She consults widely to teams and individuals within the public and private health sector. She is an experienced consultant psychiatrist and spent 20 years in the NHS in various leadership roles in different psychiatric settings that include: inpatient services, psychiatric intensive care wards, personality disorder teams, forensic, prison, hospital liaison, outpatient psychiatric and psychotherapy services. Rachel was the National Director of Therapies for the Priory Group until 2020 where she provided strategic direction for the organisation and consultation to the therapy services in 100 hospitals across the UK. She writes, runs workshops and training on the nature of mental illness and self-destructive mental processes. She is a national expert on suicide and the effect that a death by suicide has. She is currently the Chair of the Patient Safety Group and Working Group on the Effect of Suicide and Homicide on Psychiatrists at the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Professor Stephen Briggs, PhD, is Emeritus Professor of Social Work, University of East London, Honorary Professor at the Universities of Nottingham and Exeter, Fellow of The Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and a BPC accredited psychodynamic psychotherapist. Previously (1991-2012) he was Vice Dean and Consultant Social Worker in the Tavistock Clinic’s Adolescent Department (NHS). He has researched and written widely on suicide and self-harm, adolescence, adolescent psychotherapy, and infancy. He led a team research team evaluating Maytree in 2005 and 2012. His recent publications include: The effectiveness of psychoanalytic/ psychodynamic psychotherapy for reducing suicide attempts and self-harm: Systematic review and meta-analysis (British Journal of Psychiatry 2019), and Psychoanalytic understanding of the request for assisted suicide (International Journal of Psychoanalysis 2022).
Nick Hitch retired in 2015 after a lengthy career in the oil and gas industry, mainly working on the design and construction of offshore facilities projects. In January 2013 he was employed as project manager for a compression upgrade at the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria when it was attacked by Al Qaeda. Forty oil workers died in the four day hostage crisis but Nick survived and escaped. Building on his experience of recovery from a traumatic incident he enjoys supporting charities and not-for-profit organisations assisting victims of terrorism, hostage taking, trauma and mental health issues.