Patricia d'Ardenne is a clinical and counselling psychologist with 40 years' practice, teaching and research in London and overseas. She began work researching in Nashville, Tennessee, returned as Psychology lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, and then established an English Language Mental Health Service in Brussels. She returned to East London, and published adapted psychological treatments for the young Bangladeshi community there , as well as those with refugee experience. Her doctoral thesis was on multi-cultural psychology approaches for diverse communities. Patricia co-founded the Special Interest Group on Race and Culture within the British Psychological Society, where she met Aruna Mahtani, and with her, wrote Transcultural Counselling in Action, first & second editions for SAGE ( 1989 & 1999). In the last decade , Patricia established the Institute of Psychotrauma, an East London Foundation NHS Trust specialist service, where she undertook research on the use of interpreters in trauma-focussed therapies.
Patricia currently chairs a Global Health Link between East London and Uganda- a government supported partnership for mental health development, where she has been training practitioners since 2006 in psychological therapies in post conflict settings. Patricia teaches transcultural psychological approaches at Queen Mary College. She is an Associate with Interhealth Worldwide, preparing and supporting staff on humanitarian missions overseas aid workers, and was recently elected to join the Psychological Health of Travellers Group within the International Society for Travel Medicine.
