Our Team
Anando Chatterji
Anando Chatterji, individual and group psychotherapist, co-founder and CEO, Hank Nunn Institute (HNI), Bengaluru, India. His background is in philosophy where his interest in the complexities of human existence began. He worked at Athma Shakti Vidyalaya, a residential community for people with severe psychological distress, as a staff member for 14 years and was the community lead for the Community of Communities, UK, peer review for 5 cycles. In 2014 he co-founded HNI along with Shama Parkhe, which aims to create affordable and accessible psycho-social services as and alternative to the bio-medical psychiatric system for people with personality and relational difficulties. His interest lies developing therapeutic practice which is co-created with service user involvement at all levels. He believes there is no therapy without change and no change without social change. He is a member of the staff team of the Living Learning Experience workshops, UK and India and a supervisor for the Therapeutic Environments Practitioners Training, UK.
GianCarlo Decimo
Gian Carlo Decimo trained in medicine and neurology at Universitá di Palermo, then in psychoanalytical psychotherapy with the Overseas Course of the Tavistock Centre in London, and in psychodrama with the Mediterranean Association of Psychodrama.
He works in Sicily as a community psychiatrist and individual psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and leads a day centre in Alcamo. Since 1998 he has been involved in delivering and planning Living Learning Experiences, in UK and Italy. With Aldo Lombardo, he set up the first Living Learning Experiences in Italy, and then developed ‘floating workshops’ on a specially adapted former fishing boat in Trapani
Jan Lees
Jan has worked in the mental health field for over 40 years as a social worker, lecturer, researcher, counsellor and therapist. She was a researcher at Henderson Hospital for three years in the 1980, and more recently, worked at Francis Dixon Lodge Therapeutic Community in Leicester for 12 years, as a researcher and therapeutic community therapist.
She was lead researcher on a systematic literature review of therapeutic community research studies, on a multi-centre comparative study of therapeutic communities, was chair of the Editorial Collective of the Therapeutic Communities Journal 2004-2008 and has published many papers on therapeutic community research.
She led the initial Prison Service audits, as part of the Community of Communities Quality Improvement peer-review network of therapeutic communities. She has just retired from her post as an adult psychotherapist in the NHS, and is now working freelance, having qualified as a group analyst in 2013. She has been part of the LLE workshop staff team for over ten years.
João Pereira
João G. Pereira is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Évora University and Clinical Director of Romão de Sousa Foundation (Casa de Alba).
He holds a Doctorate in Psychotherapy by Middlesex University, following a number of years in the UK National Health Service developing and researching therapeutic programs.
João is a Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society (BPS), a Registered Psychotherapist with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and has been awarded the European Certificate of Psychotherapy by the EAP.
He is interested in understanding what goes on in developing and sustaining therapeutic relationships and in the intersection between psychoanalysis, philosophy and neuroscience.
He is currently a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Philosophical Psychiatry at NOVA University of Lisbon and member of international research groups. He is also on the scientific committee of several mental health related events.
João is the author and editor of a number of mental health publications. He co-edited and authored the recently published books “Schizophrenia and Common Sense” by Springer-Nature and “The Neurobiology-Psychotherapy-
Neil Palmer
Neil’s first job was as a then called ‘Nursing Assistant’ on the boys’ adolescent ward at Bethlem Royal Hospital. He then went to work in a secure unit at a boys’ assessment centre before then transferring to the Henderson Hospital as a social therapist for over 2 years. After that he worked in a day centre (loosely based as a therapeutic community) where he qualified as a Group Analyst. He was a member of the founding staff team for LLEs in 1995. His last job was in an NHS personality disorder service therapeutic community based in Aylesbury Buckinghamshire.
Steve Pearce
Steve is a medical psychotherapist and psychiatrist and heads the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Complex Needs Service, which runs five TCs in the NHS. He qualified as a group analyst in 2000. He is chair of NHS England’s Specialised mental health Clinical Reference Group and past editor of the International Journal of Therapeutic Communities. He is chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists faculty of medical psychotherapy.
Raffaele Barone
Raffaele is also the author and editor of a number of mental health
Rex Haigh
Rex is an NHS Consultant Psychiatrist in Medical Psychotherapy who has been fascinated by therapeutic communities since being somewhat terrified by one, as an Oxford medical student in 1980. He has been Chair of the Association of Therapeutic Communities, series editor of the Jessica Kingsley ‘Community, Culture and Change’ book series, and member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Therapeutic Communities. He founded the current style of LLE workshops in 1995, and started the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ “Community of Communities” in 2002 and “Enabling Environments” in 2009.
His professional background is general practice, psychiatry, psychotherapy and group analysis. He has been an NHS Consultant since 1994, has worked with the Department of Health as Clinical Advisor for the National Personality Disorder Programme (2002-2011), and is Honorary Professor of Therapeutic Environments at Nottingham University’s School of Sociology and Social Policy. He has particular interests in co-production and greencare, and is Director of Imagination, Ideas and Aesthetics for Growing Better Lives CIC.
Sandra Kelly
Sandra has been the nursing lead at Francis Dixon Lodge, one of the last residential therapeutic communities in the NHS, in Leicester, for over twenty years. She has been a member of the LLE staff team since 2002, and has been involved in the UK and Italian workshops. She qualified as a group analyst in 2013.
Sarah Tucker
Sarah is National Training Manager at the Institute of Group Analysis and a Training Group Analyst. She qualified as a Group Analyst in 2005. Working in private practice she is a Member of the Group Analytic Network London and the Group Analytic Practice. She is Programme Manager of the Quality Network for Forensic Mental Health Services at the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s Centre for Quality Improvement.
Previously Sarah worked as a Group Analyst at Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust, Freedom from Torture: Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture , the Tavistock Centre for Couples Relationships and HMP Grendon.
Shama Parkhe has a background in clinical psychology. She co-founded Hank Nunn Institute, a not-for-profit registered charitable trust, in July 2014, and presently works in the capacity of a Clinical Director. She works with individuals experiencing personality difficulties in an individual and group setting (using psychodrama and group analytic framework). In addition, Shama also offers training & clinical supervision to psychology post-graduates and young professionals. Shama has a keen interest in developing alternatives to conventional mental health practices. She believes that one’s cultural and social systems are highly influential in one’s development of mental health. It is therefore necessary to address the larger community and not just the individual in isolation. Shama also believes in collaborating with the service user community in designing supportive spaces which enable their journey of self discovery.
Sheena Money
Sheena trained and worked as a general nurse in the 1980s and later qualified as a mental health nurse, and gained further qualifications qualification in child and adolescent psychiatric nursing. She trained as a counsellor with the Central School for Counselling and therapy, and more recently chose to train as a psychodrama psychotherapist, in which she is now qualified and working for an MSc with Worcester university.
She is a team therapist working in the Oxfordshire complex needs service, which is a Therapeutic Community service (TC) for adults with a Personality disorder. She has a dual role so as well as working in the clinical field she provides training, teaching, advice and consultation on Personality disorders within the Trust and to external parties as part of the Thames Valley Initiative (TVI). Sheena works closely with the ex-service user group STARS and works to develop career pathways for people after therapy.
Simone Bruschetta
Psychologist, PhD Researcher freelance, Psychotherapist Group Analyst, TC Specialist, HR Specialist. He was born in Milan on 06/02/1973, lives and works in Sicily where he was employed in many therapeutic communities (including the “Calimero Group” a TC for children and adolescents) and social agencies for the development of local communities. Since his first professional experiences, he has dedicated himself to clinical-social practice and to empirical research on serious mental illness and on connected serious political-social problems, such as poverty, marginalization, and precariousness.
He founded and currently directs the “Visiting DTC Project”, an Italian Scientific Professional Quality Accreditation Program that is aimed at those methodological aspects of the quality of Residential and Housing Services of Mental Health identified as a “Group-Community Quality”, and has the scientific professional patterns reference on the Democratic Therapeutic Community and on the Community Mental Health.
Veronica Dominguez Bailey
Veronica has more than 30 years of experience working with individuals, families and groups in Latin America, including working in prisons (Uruguay), with refugees (Costa Rica), in therapeutic communities in Italy, and with Kent County Council Social Services (Mental Health) and other private institutions providing psychological support for vulnerable adults who have a wide-ranging learning and mental health issues the UK. Veronica has also taught in the Universities of Costa Rica and of Buenos Aires and has had contributions in newspapers, radio and TV programs in Costa Rica and Uruguay.
Since 1998 she has been involved in co-tutoring LLE workshops in Italy and the UK. She is firmly convinced that this form of treatment with a psychodynamic understanding is the most effective therapeutic tool to support individuals and groups in their development and during their therapeutic processes.