Gary Morris

Profile

Adult, Child and Mental Health NursingDr Gary Morris - BSc(hons) Nursing (Mental Health) programme leader. 

After qualifying as a mental health nurse my professional development commenced with working in London in a practice setting run as a therapeutic community. This was followed by running psychotherapy groups and offering individual therapy. I subsequently broadened my therapeutic base training in psychodrama and as a cognitive analytic therapist. Experience was also gained working in a dementia care ward, recognising the need to develop wide-ranging and in some cases more creative communication approaches. 

As an educationalist, I firmly believe in the need to see the person within the condition and have developed approaches to facilitating empathic engagement amongst nursing students. I also value the importance of collaboratively engaging with service users and carers, recognising their status as experts by experience - individuals who can help us contextualise and better understand what it is like to live with mental health issues. My main teaching interests focus upon promoting awareness of lived mental health experience, utilising a wide range of approaches including exposure to media products carrying personal narratives. These include feature films, TV documentaries, autobiographies, Internet blogs/discussion forums and newspaper/magazine articles amongst many others. This I believe is the heart of the mental health nurse’s role – learning how to engage and connect with those experiencing mental health issues and subsequently being better placed to address identified needs.