About Carl Taylor

My background

I am a Chartered Counselling Psychologist with 25 years’ clinical experience. I trained in psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London, and in counselling psychology at Regent’s University London. My training was grounded in existential and phenomenological practice alongside psychodynamic and integrative approaches, and included four years of my own personal therapy.

My clinical work began in university counselling and the voluntary sector. In 2006 I moved into NHS secondary care, and spent the next 14 years at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (opens in a new tab) as a senior counselling psychologist in adult mental health secondary care services. I worked on psychiatric inpatient wards, in community mental health teams and in specialist psychological therapies, with adults experiencing severe, complex and enduring mental health difficulties. Much of that work was integrative, specialist and tailored to each person’s needs.

In the Lewisham Integrated Psychological Therapies Team I led the Cognitive Analytic Therapy and Mentalization-Based Therapy services. I designed the services’ supervision framework, provided psychological consultation to multidisciplinary teams, and supervised and managed trainee and qualified clinical and counselling psychologists. In 2016 I was shortlisted for the Trust’s Excellence in Learning Award for contributions to training, supervision and service development.

Since 2020 I have worked in independent practice, in Borough near London Bridge and online. I now focus on anxiety, low mood, stress and relationship difficulties. The depth of my NHS experience underpins that work: it shapes how I assess, how I understand what is happening for someone, and how I judge what will help.