Dr Rachel Gibbons
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 I have worked as a consultant in the NHS, privately, and in national leadership roles. I have been researching the nature of suicide and suicide bereavement for over 16 years. My focus is on applying psychoanalytic/psychodynamic concepts to complex topics in mental health care and psychiatry. The aim is to encourage open, honest dialogue....I am currently thinking about the nature of self-harm, prejudice and discrimination in those diagnosed with a personality disorder, assisted dying/suicide and the defensive processes we use as clinicians to deny our own vulnerability. I am a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and group analyst.

Recent Papers

Mourning and mental illness
The mourning process and its importance in mental illness: a psychoanalytic understanding of psychiatric diagnosis and classification
BJPsych article of the month March 2024
Clinicians' experiences 
Effects of patient suicide on psychiatrists: survey of experiences and support required
Cambridge University Press April 2019
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Listen to the podcast
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The nature of suicide and the impact on the bereaved
The 8 'truths' about suicide

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Understanding the psychodynamics of the pathway to suicide
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​The impact of suicide on
​the mind of the bereaved
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Supporting mental health staff following the death of a patient by suicide
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Book

Seminars in the Psychotherapies (Second Edition)
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'It is a full and wide-ranging book that can be used for reference or quiet study... it also includes throughout its pages a rich seam of personal reflection, literary quotations, on-the-hoof clinical anecdotes and case studies that help bring things to life.'
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The book 'provides refreshing views of modern-day psychotherapy that are firmly rooted in principles psychoanalysis.'
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Current Reccomendations

Other Articles, videos and podcasts

You don't have to be mad to work here by Dr Benji Waterhouse
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Humane, hilarious, and heart-breaking, You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here is an enlightening and darkly comic window into the world of psychiatry.
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Unlocking the doors to the psych ward, NHS psychiatrist Dr Benji Waterhouse provides a fly-on-the-padded-wall account of medicine’s most mysterious and controversial speciality.
Working in the Dark by Donald Campbell and Rob Hale
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Working in the Dark focuses on the authors’ understanding of an individual’s pre-suicide state of mind, based on their work with many suicidal individuals, with special attention to those who attempted suicide while in treatment.

The book explores how to listen to a suicidal individual’s history, the nature of their primary relationships and their conscious and unconscious communications.
Experiences and support needs of psychiatrists under investigation
BJPsych
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Valdo Calocane: Navigating the complexities of blame in the wake of tragedy: a call for realistic expectations of mental healthcare
BMJ
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​Experiences and support needs of consultant psychiatrists following a patient-perpetrated homicide
BJPsych
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Parity of esteem within the biopsychosocial model: is psychiatry still a psychological profession?
BJPsych
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​Psychiatrists’ Experience of a Peer Support Group for Reflecting on Patient Suicide and Homicide: A Qualitative Study
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022
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​The Psychodynamics of Self Harm 
BJPsyche Advances
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The 'impossibility' of working in the current NHS Podcast
The Tavistock Institute 
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Dr Rachel Gibbons
  • Home
  • Resources
    • Patient Suicide Resources
    • Patient Homicide Resources
  • Contact