Valerie Sinason, PhD, is a poet, writer, child psychotherapist and adult psychoanalyst. She specialised in working with abused/abusing and dissociative patients including those with a learning disability, and was Founder Director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies until December 2016 when she retired from long-term clinical work. Valerie continues with writing, supervision and short-term assessment work.
From 1987 to 1999 Valerie was Consultant Child Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic; from 1994 to 1997 she was Consultant Psychotherapist at both the Anna Freud and Portman Clinics; and from 1994 to 2006 she was Consultant Research Psychotherapist/Psychoanalyst at St George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London. Valerie is Honorary Consultant Psychotherapist to the University of Cape Town’s Child Guidance Clinic.
Valerie is president of the Institute of Psychotherapy and Disability (IPD), patron of the Dorchester Trust and the Centre for Action on Rape and Abuse, acting chair of trustees of the Nieu Bethesda Arts Foundation, and a council member for Norwood.
In April 2016, Valerie was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). In 2017, she was made a Fellow of the ISSTD and in January 2019 she was elected to their Board of Directors.
Valerie has written extensively, with over 12 books and 100 papers and lectures nationally and internationally, as well as over 100 published peer-reviewed papers, chapters and books. Her book titles include the seminal Mental Handicap and the Human Condition (originally published 1992; 2nd edition published in 2010 by Free Association Books), and Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity: Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder (originally published 2002; 2nd edition published 2010 by Routledge). Her latest book, on which she was co-author, is titled Shattered but Unbroken (published 2016 by Routledge).
