Boyd, Jemma (Dr)

About

*** Update – Jemma’s list is full at April 2025, she will not be able to take on new clients at this time ***

Dr Jemma Boyd, Chartered Clinical Psychologist, EMDR Europe Accredited Practitioner, and Systemic Family Therapist has over 25 years’ experience working with adults with complex mental health difficulties, work which has frequently involved helping people to deal with the effects of traumatic events or relationships, important losses or changes, or symptoms which have significantly restricted people’s lives. She offers treatment to individuals, couples and families.

In her treatments, Jemma draws from a wide range of effective, evidence-based psychological therapy approaches to develop individually tailored treatments to help people achieve more fulfilling lives. The approaches Jemma uses are all recommended in NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) government guidelines for the treatment of psychological difficulties, include Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness, and Systemic Family Therapy.

Using these research supported and government endorsed treatments, Jemma can offer treatments for trauma-related issues, anxiety, low mood, sleep, chronic pain, stress, irritability, worry, upsetting memories, relationships difficulties (past and present), struggles with understanding and/or managing feelings, tackling problematic thoughts and/or behaviours. Jemma is experienced in working with people with coronavirus related issues and she is trained in working with individuals and groups affected by recent and/or ongoing traumatic situations.

About Jemma

Jemma approaches her work with compassion and sensitivity to each person and their individual needs. She is relentlessly passionate and enthusiastic in assisting people to lead more satisfying lives by helping them make sense of their difficulties, understand why their difficulties have persisted, and develop their ways of managing.

Jemma completed Clinical Psychology Doctorate level training at the University of Southampton in 1999. Emerging from this training with a keen interest in considering people and their difficulties within their couple, family and wider systems, Jemma undertook a four year Masters course in Systemic Psychotherapy qualifying with Distinction as a Family Therapist from the Tavistock and Portman Clinic, University of East London in 2007.

The focus of Jemma’s work as a Clinical Psychologist over the last decade has been with people who have survived single or multiple traumatic events or relationships and other significantly distressing life events. To increase her effectiveness as a therapist and the repertoire of therapy approaches she can able to offer to people, she has undertaken further training and development in EMDR, Attachment Informed EMDR (AI-EMDR), Mindfulness, and DBT skills. More recently, she has been developing her interest in the effect of psychological difficulties on our bodies and our physiology, including training in Trauma Centre Trauma Sensitive Yoga, as well as working with chronic pain and sleep difficulties.

Through her work with a number of charities Jemma has developed her interest in palliative care issues, as well as supporting military veterans, asylum seekers, and people involved in public inquiries.

Jemma has accrued considerable experience using psychological treatments to work with individuals, couples, families and groups. Over her career she has also build substantial experience teaching, supervising, training, and offering consultation to other professionals.

Supervision

I am available for EMDR supervision for people who have completed EMDR basic training parts 1-4

Research interest

Jemma has a range of research interests including the role of friendships in women’s lives, depression in older adults, and behavioural and psychiatric problems in people with learning disabilities. In her former NHS role, she established, ran, and evaluated a Yoga for Trauma group, and led a Quality Improvement project aimed at increasing empowerment in recovery from mental health difficulties. Jemma has a number of published research papers.