Therapist, former Family Physician
Winchester, United Kingdom
Anna Olliff-Cooper graduated as a doctor from St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, part of the University of London. After obtaining higher qualifications in Internal Medicine and Family Medicine, she spent much of her career as a family physician. She particularly enjoyed helping patients whose physical symptoms were underpinned by emotional issues.
Upon leaving medicine Anna went on to train as an artist, focusing on portraiture and life-drawing. She developed a special interest in drawing with red chalk, in the manner of the Renaissance artists.
When retinal problems prevented her from pursuing this further, Anna built on her previous fascination with people’s emotional issues to retrain as a therapist. She obtained a degree in Transactional Analysis under the auspices of Middlesex University, with an additional year of postgraduate training at Metanoia Institute in London. She now works on a pro bono basis for a sexual and domestic violence charity, and also sees clients with a wider range of issues referred by family physicians. She is particularly moved by seeing how sexual, physical or emotional abuse sustained in childhood continues to resonate throughout life and into old age. One of Anna’s interests in coming to Stanford is to explore the cutting-edge developments in psychology and the neurosciences that shed light on how therapy works – an area currently neglected in the training of therapists in the UK.
Divorced with two grown sons, Anna lives in Winchester, United Kingdom, and enjoys house renovation, walking, pilates and the visual arts.