Eleanor Anderson


9 Moneyhill Road,
Rickamansworth, WD3 7EE, UK

Phone: +441923 775993
Email: eleanor.anderson@gmail.com
Web: https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/being-with-older-people-a-systemic-approach/26159/

Eleanor Anderson trained as a Social Worker at McGill University in Montreal, and worked for a year and a half in the Northwest Territories of Canada, before moving to the UK where she has lived and worked ever since. Married for almost 50 years, she has two daughters and three grandchildren. She was fortunate to meet Peter Lang while working as a generic social worker and this led her to do her systemic clinical, supervisory and teaching training at the Kensington Consultation Centre. Working in small communities in Canada and as a community social worker in the UK made her deeply interested in community and what enables change. Her systemic training was invaluable in helping her as a volunteer founding member of a large bereavement network which brought church, community and independent bereavement services together to provide both training and services to bereaved individuals, couples and families as well as innovative community initiatives.

For 11 years she worked as family and systemic therapist in Old Age Psychiatry for the NHS. During which time she co-edited a book with Glenda Fredman and Joshua Stott on “Being with Older People: A Systemic Approach,” as well as co-editing two issues of Context, the magazine of the Journal of Family Therapy on Ageing in the Family and Living with Dying and Bereavement. Now retired from the NHS, as well as continuing with some supervisory work and teaching, she facilitates a support group of adults living with long term mental health difficulties. She is a volunteer with Friends of KCC, “a collective of volunteers who co-ordinate and work together for the purpose of arranging events such as training and professional development.”

Now in her mid-seventies, she is interested in how our developing systemic and collaborative practices sustain and guide us through the challenges ageing bring to our lives. She and her peer supervision group, some retired from active clinical and supervisory work, continue to meet regularly, but now also for ‘supervision of life’.