Making Sense of Dementia 3: A psychoanalytic perspective on working with couples living with dementia

Summary: ANDREW BALFOUR is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist and Director of Clinical Services at the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, a centre of excellence for psychodynamic relationship therapy. He originally studied English Literature before training as a clinical psychologist at University College London, and then as an adult psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust and as a couple psychotherapist at the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships (TCCR) where he currently works. He worked for many years in the adult department of the Tavistock Clinic where he specialised in old age. He has published a number of papers and has taught and lectured widely both in Britain and abroad. Having been working for some time with Professor Peter Hobson and Dr Jessica Hobson from the Tavistock Portman NHS Trust and UCL, he is currently leading an innovative project at TCCR, with funding from Camden Council's 'Innovation Fund', to develop and trial a new intervention for couples where one person has had a diagnosis of dementia. The project's focus is upon increasing the carer's sense of understanding, emotional contact and communication with their partner, to improve the life experience and mental health of spouse carers and people with dementia, and to transform the psychological health provision available to older couples living with dementia. With Mary Morgan, he edited a book How Couple Relationships Shape our World: Clinical Practice, Research, and Policy Perspective (2012) and was a contributing author to Looking Into Later Life: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Depression and Dementia in Old Age (2007), edited by Rachel Davenhill, both books were published by Karnac.