Psychotherapy for women: A pilot project

Abstract

SHANTI was set up five years ago under the auspices of West Lambeth Health Authority as a pioneer project funded by Inner City Partnership to provide mental health services for women, in a community setting. It is a free service now financed and administered within the NHS, situated on a Brixton housing estate and staffed by five therapists (some only part-time), a co-ordinator and creche worker (all women). The service offers individual, brief, focused, psychoanalytic psychotherapy together with some group work and a befriending scheme. Its rationale was the existence of a largely unmet need expressed by local women for a safe, user-friendly place where they could choose to come to talk about their distress. Extensive outreach work undertaken in the community before the clinical service opened, and research evaluation of the needs and expectations of current users, have confirmed the importance of this approach to women's psychological well-being.