INTRODUCTION
Hello! I am Claudia Vau – Individual and Group Psychotherapist trained by the London Centre of Psychodrama (LCP) and registered with:
- The British Psychodrama Association (BPA) since 2012,
- The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) since 2020.
Please feel free to get in touch if you have questions about the services I provide that aren’t answered by biographical information below, or elsewhere in this website.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
I have worked in other fields, but my professional identity has become that of a creative who uses action-methods and (other) therapeutic resources in group and one-to-one work, pertaining to individual, community and organisational development, well-being and mental health.
My clinical experience progressively expanded from embodied to hybrid and online practice, drawing not only on psychodrama , sociodrama and playback theatre, but also on my growing interest for systemic therapy, the neuroscience of relationships, neurodiversity and intersectionality.
I am welcoming individual referrals and self-referrals at the moment; I am also happy to devise and run group sessions and workshops for families, communities and organisations, whilst working in a Kent-based Rehabilitation Clinic with an holistic approach to the treatment of addiction, eating disorders (ED), trauma and depression, among other mental health issues.
Previously, I worked in therapeutic community (TC) environment within His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and the National Health Service (NHS), with people living with personality disorders (PD) and other complex diagnoses. A also worked in various charities (with vulnerable youth and women living with learning disabilities in the community), as well as with private providers of residential mental health recovery support services and of residential care services for co-morbid learning disabilities.
I have also practised applied Playback Theatre (PT) with women recovering from ED, and implemented creative action within a youth development programme – the BPA recognised this latter work with an Anne Bannister Scholar Award in 2014.
When it comes to one-to-one psychotherapy and counselling, I gained experience as school-based psychotherapist working with parents and school/staff, as volunteer bereavement counsellor and as freelance trainee Psychodrama practitioner, providing low-cost services to adult clients and adolescents in London. I have since relocated, first to Surrey then to Kent.
I now practice group and individual psychotherapy, counselling and coaching (online and face-to-face) in Kent, UK.
ACADEMIC BACKGROUND AND PUBLICATIONS
Prior to my Post-graduate Diploma in Group and Individual Psychodrama Psychotherapy, I completed a Bachelor’s degree in Public Relations (PR) with the University Institute of Maia, Portugal, and a Master’s degree in Communication and Arts with the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the NOVA University of Lisbon.
I have published a book in Portugal – on the role of PR in Corporate Social Accountability (CSA) – and several articles in Portugal and England – on Socially Responsible Communication and PR, Theatrical Mediation, Psychodrama and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in TC, and Psychopathology.
More recently published by Routledge (in February 2022) and edited by Geraldine Akerman and Richard Shuker, the book “Global Perspectives on Interventions in Forensic Therapeutic Communities – A Practitioner’s Guide” includes a chapter I co-authored, with contributions from Vicky Gavin and women of Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background, with whom we worked with in the only female forensic TC with a formal re-offending risk reduction programme, which is part of the Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) Pathway in the UK. This chapter – the second chapter in the book – includes anonymised self-reporting testimonies of 2 former TC residents, describing my contribution to the core creative TC model and qualitative outcomes of the integrative approach (combining Psychodrama Psychotherapy and Art Therapy) that I developed in custodial TC environment, between January 2016 and September 2018.
CLAUDIA VAU 