Peter Griffiths

Consultant Nurse and Therapist, Child, Young Adult and Families Directorate

MA, BSc (Hons), SRN, RMN, Cassel Cert, IPTUK IPT Practitioner, MBACP, BPC, PFHEA.  Consultant Nurse, Couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist, IPT Therapist and Senior lecturer.

Peter Griffiths is a Consultant Nurse and Therapist in the Child, Young Adult and Families Directorate (CYAF) and Department of Education and Training (DET) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. He works clinically with families, parents, couples and individuals, using a variety of individual, couple and group therapies, in and outside of the Trust. 

His clinical career within the NHS spans 43 years of clinical and managerial practice. He trained originally as a general nurse (SRN) and worked in the fields of intensive coronary care and respiratory medicine, developing a nursing development unit (NDU) at Charing Cross hospital in the 1980s. He went on to train at the Maudsley Hospital as a registered mental health nurse (RMN). He trained and then worked at The Cassel Hospital for 11 years, developing models of psychosocial practice through different forms of research, the development of courses, through publications and through training and consultancy within other health care settings, alongside further training at the Tavistock clinic.

He joined the Tavistock clinic staff in 1999 to champion the professional development of the discipline of nursing at the Tavistock Clinic. In particular within the CAMHS Directorate, where as Head of the CAMHS Nurse Discipline (1999 - 2015), he developed the nursing service across teams within the Child and Family department. As a Principal Lecturer at Middlesex University, Department of Mental health and Social Work (1999-2013) he had responsibility for developing CAMHs training programmes. Both posts involved the professional development of the discipline of nursing and the development of psychodynamic and systemically informed training and courses for nurses; and others working with children, adolescents and their families, developing research and offering consultation to individuals, groups and organisations.

From 2011 – 2017, he was the CAMHS training cluster lead and then the Portfolio Manager for the Psychological therapies Portfolio Training Cluster, at the Tavistock Clinic. These posts involved developing regionally and nationally​ different forms of tri-modal training to enhance the skills and capabilities of the child and adolescent mental health workforce. In 2015 he was awarded the HENCEL Trainer of the year award and with colleagues, the Interprofessional course of the year award for this work. 

He has a deep and evolved interest in all forms of experiential and group learning, designing and directing Group Relations conferences, as well as working as a staff consultant on them within the UK and abroad. 

He practices as a Couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist and works part-time as a Nurse Consultant, Therapist, Supervisor and Trainer in the Directorate of Children, Young People and Families (CYAF) at The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, where he specialises in working with couples, parents and families, using a variety of individual and group therapies.

Email: PGriffiths@tavi-port.nhs.uk

Publications

Barnes, E. Griffiths, P. Ord, J. & Wells, D. (eds) (1998) Face to Face with Distress: The professional use of self in psychosocial Care Butterworth Heinemann. Oxford.

Denford, J.& Griffiths. P (1993) Transferences to the Institution and their effect on In-Patient treatment at The Cassel Hospital. Therapeutic Communities. Vol 14, No 4, p237-248.

Franks, V. and Griffiths, P. (2001) Teaching emotional nursing. Practice Nursing. Vol 12, no9, p351-353

Franks, V. & Griffiths, P. (2002) Caring for patients who provoke strong feelings Practice Nursing Vol 13, No 5, p214-216

Franks, V. and Griffiths, P (2006) Tavistock Occasional Paper series (2006) The Caring professions-the role in the mind - Nursing as a case Study. Paper given at Jock Sutherland Lecture February 2005 Edinburgh

Griffiths, P. and Pringle, P. (eds) (1997) Psychosocial Practice in a Residential Setting Karnac Books. London.

Griffiths, P (2001) Child and adolescent mental health: A cause for concern in primary care nursing. Mental Health Practice. Vol 5, No 1, p38 & 39

Griffiths, P. (2018) Oedipal dynamics and the couple, a clinical commentary for Greg and Lottie chapter 8 in Novakovic, A. and Reid, M. (eds) 2018) Couple stories: Application of psychoanalytic ideas in thinking about couple interaction. Routledge. London. 

Griffiths, P. (2012) Making CAMHS everyones business..still. Young Minds Magazine p

Griffiths, P & Franks, V. (2005) Nursing Mental Health at the Tavistock. Chapter 4 in Tilley, S. (ed) (2004) Fields of Knowledge in Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. Blackwell Scientific

Griffiths, P. and Hinshelwood, R, D. (1996) A Culture of Enquiry: Life in a Hall of Mirrors Published in the Cassel Bulletin no 2 Autumn 1997

Griffiths, P. and Hinshelwood, R.D. (1997) Actions speak louder than words. Chapter 1 in Griffiths, P. and Pringle, P. (eds) (1997) Psychosocial Practice in a Residential Setting Karnac Books. London. p1-17

Griffiths, P and Hinshelwood, R, D. (2001) Enquiring into a culture of enquiry. Chapter 2 in Day, L. and Pringle, P. (2001) Reflective Enquiry in Therapeutic Institutions. Cassel Monograph 2. Karnac Books. London.

Griffiths, P & Leach, G. (1998) Psychosocial Nursing: a model learnt from experience. Chapter 1, part 2 in Barnes, E. Griffiths, P. Ord, J. & Wells, D. (Eds) (1997) Face to Face with Distress: The professional use of self in psychosocial Care Butterworth Heinemann. Oxford. P3-41

Lindsey, C. and Griffiths, P. (2004) Developing a Comprehensive CAMHS. Young Minds 73, p31-33 

McCluskey, S. and Griffiths, P. (1996) Psychosocial Outreach Nursing: Re-enacting or re-defining interprofessional relatedness. Published in the Cassel Bulletin no1 Spring 1997

Rounce, K. Basset, T. Beadsmore, A. Brown, H. Sapiro, J. Griffiths, P, Paget, S. Ryan,P. (2003) Onwards and upwards: Middlesex University hopes  to pioneer the first degree level training for mental health workers Mental Health Practice Today April 2003 p31-33