Boyd, Jemma (Dr)

About

Dr Jemma Boyd, Chartered Clinical Psychologist and qualified Systemic Family Therapist has over 20 years experience working for Bedfordshire NHS Mental Health Services, specialising in working with adults with complex mental health difficulties and trauma. Her work has frequently involved helping people deal with the effects of traumatic events or relationships, significant losses or changes, or symptoms which have significantly restricted people’s lives.

In her treatments, Jemma draws from a wide range of effective, evidence-based psychological therapy approaches to develop individually tailored treatments. Treatments are always designed to help people work toward specific goals in order to achieve more fulfilling lives. The approaches Jemma uses are all recommended by NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) government guidelines for the treatment of psychological difficulties, and include:

• Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)

• Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)

• Systemic Couple/ Family Therapy

• Mindfulness

• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy skills (DBT skills)

Using these research supported and government endorsed treatments Jemma can offer treatments for anxiety, low mood, sleep, pain, stress, irritability, worry, upsetting memories, relationship difficulties (past and present), struggles understanding and/or managing feelings, tackling problematic thoughts and/or behaviours. Jemma is interested and experienced in working with people with coronavirus (COVID 19) related issues; both the direct effects of the pandemic such as recovery from traumatic illness, and indirect effects such as worry, anxiety or preoccupation with the pandemic, bereavement, adjustment struggles, low mood or raised emotional distress. Particularly relevant to the current context of COVID 19 pandemic, Jemma has recently completed training relevant to working with individuals and groups affected by recent and/or ongoing trauma situations. 

About Jemma

Jemma approaches her work with compassion and with sensitivity to each person and their individual needs.  She is relentlessly passionate and enthusiastic in assisting her clients to lead more satisfying lives by helping them to make sense of their difficulties, understand why their difficulties have persisted, and to 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 understanding people and their difficulties within their couple, family and wider systems, Jemma undertook a further four year Masters course in Systemic Psychotherapy. She qualified with Distinction as a Family Psychotherapist 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 ten years 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, the range of therapy approaches she can offer to people, and remain abreast of developments in psychological treatment methods, Jemma has undertaken additional training and development in EMDR, Mindfulness, and DBT skills. 

Currently, Jemma has been developing her interest in the effect of psychological difficulties on our bodies and our physiology. Her most recent professional developments have included treatment for people and groups/teams who have experienced trauma very recently and those with ongoing trauma such as people affected by COVID 19 (coronavirus) and the associated context. 

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