Genevieve Lowes
Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist
M Prof Ch Psych Psych, MA, PGCE, BA (Hons)
I am an independent child and adolescent psychotherapist with ten years’ previous experience of working in NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (known as CAMHS or CYPS). I have worked in private practice since January 2018 offering psychotherapy services for children, young people, and their families. I aim to help when there are worries about emotional or psychological difficulties in children: from infancy through to teenage years, and steps into adulthood.
I also offer clinical consultation to professionals who work with children, when there are concerns around worrying and challenging behaviours and mental health. I work within the professional and ethical guidelines of the Association of Child Psychotherapy (ACP).
What is child and adolescent psychotherapy?
Child and adolescent psychotherapists specialise in working developmentally and therapeutically with infants, children and young people. Our training is psychoanalytic (sometimes termed psychodynamic). We are trained to carefully notice and respond to the complex communications of children. Communications may be verbal, or expressed non-verbally through behaviour, play, creative work or other sensory communication.
What can psychotherapy help with?
Child and adolescent psychotherapy can help with a wide range of difficulties including;
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Loss and bereavement
- Developmental difficulties
- Relationship difficulties
- Attachment difficulties
- Challenging behaviours
- Psychosomatic anxieties
- Eating disorders
- Learning difficulties and disabilities
- Challenges with personality
- Trauma and the consequences of abuse and maltreatment
Can child and adolescent psychotherapy help children with complex and additional needs?
I am strongly committed to providing specialist therapeutic help for children and families who struggle with additional challenges such as autism and learning difficulties. Such children often miss out on the help they need.
I am very experienced in providing specialist therapeutic support for the recovery of highly complex emotional and psychological difficulties such as those experienced by children who are looked-after in foster-care or residential homes.
More about me…
I have worked professionally with children and families for over twenty years. From 2007, I worked in NHS CAMHS as a child and adolescent psychotherapist. Some of my work has been in community outreach, such as nurseries, schools and children’s centres, which helps when understanding children in the context of their daily lives.
I have experience of providing NHS training for professionals working with children. It was a great pleasure to teach skills in infant observation to professionals working in a wide variety of fields with young children. Within the NHS I provided trainings on Infant Mental Health.
Until 2007, I worked as an English and Drama teacher in secondary education. Over 10 years, I enjoyed teaching children of all abilities, particularly those who struggled with special educational needs such as autism, dyslexia, additional learning difficulties, challenging behaviours. I also taught many highly academic teenagers, who were suffering with anxiety and depression; sometimes showing as eating disorders or obsessional behaviours and social anxiety.
In my work as a therapist, I take a holistic approach to child development and well-being. Increasingly, studies reveal the value of understanding how our minds and bodies are deeply connected. I have a professional and personal interest in the mind&body relationship, and how mindfulness and meditation, as well as practices such as Yoga or Qi Gong, are helpful in managing states of anxiety.
My approach to working with children and young people includes encouraging creativity and playfulness in support of self-development and recovery from difficulties with emotional health and well-being.
I provide psychotherapy services for children, teenagers, young people and their families across North Tyneside and the North East.
I am a full-member of The Association of Child Psychotherapists.
The Association of Child Psychotherapists is overseen by the Professional Standards Authority.
https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/
I trained with the Northern School of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, qualifying in 2011.
www.nscap.org.uk
