Helen Bolderston BSc

Dr. Helen Bolderston is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist with almost 30 years’ experience working predominantly in mental health settings. She is responsible for the workshop 'ACT and the therapeutic relationship. She is also a senior lecturer in Psychology at Bournemouth University. She was a consultant psychologist in the UK National Health Service (NHS) for many years before moving to her current academic post. Her particular area of expertise is acceptance-based psychotherapies, especially Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and mindfulness taught in the form of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy.
She has also trained in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and Gestalt Psychotherapy. Her most recent NHS clinical work was with people with complex, chronic psychological difficulties; people who are often given personality disorder diagnoses. In others settings she has worked with people with a broad range of mental health difficulties, as well as physical health issues such as chronic pain. She has led ACT training pre-conference workshops at ACBS World Conferences and UK/Ireland Conferences, and regularly provides ACT and mindfulness training and supervision for NHS clinicians. She leads a programme of ACT and mindfulness research at Bournemouth University.