Peter Gregory

Peter Gregory (Associate)

Psychosexual and Relationship Therapist

Background

Before training as a psychotherapist, Peter was a project manager in the building services industry, but he expressed his interest in therapeutically helping others via being a Samaritan volunteer.
The fulfilment of this experience led Peter to retrain fully as a psychotherapist and he now has over 20 yrs experience as a psychotherapist working with couples and individuals. He originally trained from 1992 to 1996 at the University of Southampton & Portsmouth NHS Trust where he received an MA(Ed) in a UKCP approved Education Course, which covered Relationship & Psychosexual Therapy; Cancer Health; Bereavement & Loss. This training led also led to COSRT accreditation.
In Peter’s training he was particular interested in the impact of chronic illness on the couple relationship and working with bereavement and loss. Soon after qualifying Peter worked for the Dorset NHS HealthCare Trust as a psychosexual therapist within the psychology service. He remained in the NHS for 15 years and was a senior psychotherapist within the trust by the time he left in 2010. Since then Peter has developed his own private practice which allowed for him to focus on longer term work with couples presenting with a range of issues outside the psychosexual field. He became particularly interested in working with the way language is used in our communications and how it can be constructively changed. This is especially important when working with couples.
Post covid Peter moved his practice online and he is now based in France providing online therapy with couples and individuals based in Ireland and the UK.
In addition to clinical work Peter is involved in training therapists. He lectured on psychology courses at the University of Southampton and for the Southampton Pastoral Counselling Service. Soon after completing his training, he was involved in training nurses to develop skills in connection with issues associated with stoma surgery for individuals, couples and care staff. He has provided workshops for the Hampshire Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (HACP) and the Wessex Sexual and Relationship Therapists group (WSRT). Topics presented include affairs and internet infidelity; anger; body image; mindfulness, bereavement; trauma; forgiveness and sensate focus.
Peter is enthusiastic about the continued learning that being therapist allows for and strongly believes that teaching and training benefits his clinical work as it expands his expertise.
Peter is a COSRT registered supervisor and supports other therapists in their development of their clinical practice. In 2023 he also became a trustee for UKCP which involves being part of the management board to enhance and develop standards of psychotherapy training, professional standards and continued professional development.

Clinical Experience

In the NHS psychosexual clinic, Peter saw clients (individuals and couples) referred to the service by their GP. Here he practised a short-term behavioural model of 10 sessions focused on helping couples reestablish or commence a sexual relationship. Peter used the Sensate Focus model and became adept at tailoring it suit the couples needs. Within the NHS he worked with many different races, cultures, religions, sexualities and genders. He specialised in working with trauma, anxiety and depression and still has a strong interest in working with individuals or couples presenting with this today. Peter worked in the NHS for 15 years and he was the lead in developing clinics in primary care for the Hampshire Partnership NHS Trust. In order to do this he had active collaborations with mental health teams and so he is particularly interested in the multidisciplinary approach of EBTC.
Within the NHS Peter quickly learned that sexual and relationship difficulties are typically complex and consequently developed his knowledge base to more effectively help clients. This led to him training in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and shifting specialisms into the area of trauma.
When Peter left the NHS to work in a longer term model he began to integrate the EMDR within psychosexual and couple work and developed a unique way of working that benefit his clients presenting with past trauma that was impacting their present relationship.

Areas of Specialism

Peter specialises in working with individuals and couples presenting with a range of difficulties from psychosexual to emotional. He has a lot of experience in working with high conflict couples and uses specific techniques such as conflict resolution and enhanced communication approaches, to keep things safe in the room and to help couples manage their difficult emotions. He does not shy away from couples who are presenting with overlapping difficulties such as mental health difficulties combined with communication problems, psychosexual issues and/or historic trauma. He is able to break down the issues into more manageable chunks and give couples the tools to be able to reflect and process the past while simultaneously working with the present issues to create constructive change. Developing more effective, less conflictual, ways of communicating is an important aspect of Peter’s work and he would consider this a main area of specialism.

Therapeutic Approaches

Peter’s main training focused on couple systems theory. This is based on the idea that there are patterns of interaction in a couple that can be constructive or destructive. It is these specific patterns that make each couple unique; they have their own particular characteristics. Peter helps couples become consciously aware of these patterns and understand why they have come into being then. Then he can work with the couple to change the more destructive traits.
He also uses schema theory which focuses on understanding and, if necessary, changing, negative life and self-beliefs that developed in childhood and play out in the couple relationship.

Peter’s approach to addressing trauma is firstly to aim for safety and stability before looking at the actual trauma memory. Once this is achieved, tools specifically for trauma such as EMDR are likely to be more helpful.

Peter works with couples and individuals. He also understands that sometimes an individual within a couple might need some break out sessions to work on their issues alone and so he holds this flexibility within his model.

Overall, Peter is an experienced therapist who has learnt to integrate his 20yrs of learning both in and outside of the clinical room to provide a thoughtful, tailored approach to every couple he sees. He is a great believer that not one style of work suits every couple and so he has a range of tools that he can use depending on the needs of whoever has come to him for support.

Memberships

UKCP registrant (linked member to ICP [Irish Council for Psychotherapy]).
UKCP Trustee.
COSRT (College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists) Senior Accredited member.
COSRT: Registered Supervisor.
COSRT: Senior Member of the Relationship Therapy (RT) register.