Stephen Goss, PhD, began offering training for support services around 40 years ago. He is currently the Director of the Online Therapy Institute (Europe) Ltd and works as a supervisor and counsellor in private practice. He provides consulting and research services for evaluating and developing therapy practices and has a love of innovations in how practitioners get to meet clients: and that is, preferably, whereever and however clients find most accessible and conducive to the kind of deep emotional and relational work therapy typically involves.
In 2010 Stephen was appointed Principal Lecturer with Metanoia Institute in London, where he enthused about research with doctoral candidates on a DPsych programme until 2022, when he became Head of Evaluation and Investigation at Limbic AI, a company bringing psychological assessment and treatment into the 21st century through specialist, psychiatrically competent AI.
He is also a Consulting Editor (Counselling) for the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling (see BJGC here).
Among numerous other roles, he worked as:
Development Manager for the Campaign Against Living Miserably ('CALM'), who focus on suicide prevention and mental health among young men
and with professional associations around the world, such as the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, whose Research Committee he Chaired prior to founding, developing and managing their Research Department as the first Research Development Officer in this field in the UK.
He is a UK qualified counsellor and supervisor with several thousands of hours of client contact time gathered in a wide range of settings from primary medical care to higher education and private practice.
His PhD focused on evaluating counselling and developed his lifelong interest in the philosophy of science applied to mental health research and evidence-based practice, which was the subject of his first text book.
He has taught counselling at introductory to Post Grad Diploma, Masters and Doctoral levels at the Universities of Strathclyde, Abertay Dundee and Middlesex, among others. He also supports doctoral and post-doctoral researchers through their adventures in making scientific enquiry fit with the messy needs of real human beings.
His work is based on a passionate commitment to seeing counselling and psychotherapy services develop in the best possible way, combined with a love of innovative means of providing excellent mental health care and counselling support to clients, regardless of their location.
His interest in using technology in counselling began in the mid-1990s and led to a series of studies and publications, including several books, papers and symposia and to co-authoring, with the late Dr Kate Anthony, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy's first ethical guidance on online counselling and psychotherapy, along with numerous other publications.
He also provides training, service development consultancy and supervision for counselling and psychotherapy services, especially when mediated via technology and specialises in supporting practice-based research, with practice-close implications.
He works across the UK and Europe and as far afield as USA, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Lithuania, Kosovo, Albania, Sweden, and Nigeria - among numerous other places. His main professional home, however, is the Internet, where his practice is located.