Ian Gillman-Smith

Ian has been working in Mental Health for the past twenty one years in a variety of professional settings.

Ian is a Constructivist Psychotherapist. This approach starts with the premise that the way in which we experience and come to understand the world in which we live is a unique process, specific to the individual and how they have made sense of these experiences. There is the assumption that a core part of our human endeavours is to anticipate events and situations around us, which are bound to our individual perspectives established throughout our lives and over time. Hence we anticipate events by ‘templating’ or overlaying on to them constructions that we have developed, these constructions are personal and specific to us.

Since 1999 Ian has been practicing as an Independent Social Worker and Expert Witness. He is instructed typically by solicitors who specialise in mental health, mental capacity, negligence and human rights law. Ian has prepared in excess of 480 independent social work reports.

Ian has extensive experience of preparing Social Circumstances Reports for Mental Health Review Tribunals and attendance at Mental Heath Review Tribunals as an Expert Witness in order to provide oral evidence. These reports consider the circumstances leading to, and possible alternatives to an individual’s compulsory detention in psychiatric hospital under Part II and Part III of the Mental Health Act 1983, as amended by the Mental Health Act 2007. These reports cover both social and statutory matters. The reports are prepared to a standard to be presented to a court as evidence.