Dr Sean Fernandez

Psychotherapy

Dr Fernandez has been a consultant psychiatrist in psychotherapy since 2004.

His initial training was at the Royal Free Hospital School of medicine, now part of University College Hospital, London. His core training in psychiatry was at University College, London, followed by higher specialist training in psychotherapy with West London Mental Health Trust, where he spent four years at the Cassel Hospital, a specialist unit treating people with severe personality disorders.

As a consultant, Dr Fernandez has a special interest in the treatment of people with personality disorders and more specifically with those approaches that are psychoanalytically informed and evidence based, namely mentalisation based treatment (MBT) and transference focused psychotherapy (TFP). He also provides consultation to other professionals in the management of difficult and complex cases and provides reflective practice for teams to help understand and better manage the emotional impact of such work. As the Trust Psychotherapy Tutor he is also involved in the training of junior medical colleagues, something which he is particularly passionate about.

His services, the Mid and East Surrey Psychotherapy services are secondary services, which work alongside the community mental health recovery services and other specialist services to meet the needs of not only patients with personality disorders, but also patients with complex presentations, eg. patients with depression which has been resistant to other forms of treatment. The service provides a range of interventions, including consultation, brief and long term individual psychodynamic psychotherapy, group analytic psychotherapy and cognitive analytic therapy as well as MBT and TFP.

Dr Fernandez is happy to be contacted by GPs to discuss referrals, especially where help is needed in thinking about the best psychological approach for their patients.