Renee Thurston
Child and Adolescent, Parent-Infant Psychotherapist
Renee Thurston specialises in helping children, young people, families and parents/carers with a wide variety of mental health difficulties.
With over 20 years’ experience in child psychology and psychotherapy, she is qualified across the range of presenting disorders, working with severely disabled children, children with ADHD, autism, eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorders and challenging behaviour of all kinds, including disruptive behaviour at school or in the family context. Having spent many years working in hospital baby units, special schools and nurseries, she is also an expert in parent-infant mental health and has acute observational skills in this area.
Highly experienced in child assessment, Renee brings a wealth of knowledge to the discernment and delivery of effective intervention across the range of available options. These include short-term, long-term, family, group and parent-child psychotherapy, using psychodynamic, cognitive behavioural and other evidence-based techniques, depending on the historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual or individuals concerned.
Renee works with many different types of families, including single parents, blended families, separated families, same sex couples, IVF families and their wider social networks. She believes in the importance of engaging parents, family and the wider professional community in the delivery of successful treatment outcomes.
BA, MSc, D Ch Psych
Renee qualified as a Child Psychologist and completed a MA in Psychoanalytic Observational Studies, before training at the Tavistock Clinic as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist. Renee is a VIG, Video Interaction Guidance Practitioner and a Supervisor and have used quite successfully VIG method in her work with children and their families. She has subsequently worked in a wide variety of clinical and social settings, from hospitals to schools to out-patient clinics, and has been continuously involved in child psychotherapeutic assessment and treatment for over 20 years. She has worked at the Special Care Baby Unit at the North Middlesex Hospital, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Free Hospital, the Parent-Infant Mental Health Perinatal Service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Swiss Cottage Special SEN School and the nursery at Brookfield school, amassing a vast amount of experience in working therapeutically with infants, parents and young children. She has also played a central role in carrying out expert witness assessments for court cases involving infants and children. Renee undertakes specialist teaching work in parent-infant observation and nursery observation at the Anna Freud Centre and the Tavistock Clinic in London.