I have been a Consultant Clinical Psychologist since 2006 and have worked in both adult and child Clinical Health Psychology settings since 2000. I have worked with people struggling with a wide range of physical and mental health conditions and mainly use Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) as I have found it a practical and person-centred way to empower people to make the changes in life that are important to them.
As a service lead and supervisor I have focused on developing staff to ensure they provide high quality patient care and remain in good emotional and physical health while they do so. I was project lead for the IAPT BAME Positive Practice Guide (2019), which has been the key document guiding IAPT services in England to provide more accessible and culturally responsive services (https://legacy.babcp.com/files/About/BAME/IAPT-BAME-PPG-2019.pdf), and am the author of Transcultural CBT for Anxiety and Depression (Routledge 2016).
I am involved in training in culturally adapted therapies at a national and international level and helped establish India’s first stand-alone CBT training course in Chennai as well as contributing to training for the Pakistani Association of CBT. I have published research on these topics and am also Associate Editor of the Cognitive Behaviour Therapist journal with a responsibility for research on cross-cultural therapy.
I am currently President of the BABCP, the lead organisation for CBT in the UK.
Publications
- The IAPT BAME Positive Practice Guide. Beck et al (2019). BABCP / NHSE
- Transcultural CBT for anxiety and depression. Beck, A (2016). Routledge
- Beck, A. (2019). Understanding Black and Minority Ethnic service user’s experience of racism as part of the assessment, formulation and treatment of mental health problems in cognitive behaviour therapy. The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist, 12, E8.