JOHN HENDEN is an international trainer, author, therapist and performance coach. For over 20 years, he worked within UK NHS mental health services firstly as a practitioner, then as a manager, during a time of rapid change. He delivers training courses from a broad portfolio; and also provides organisations with personal coaching and mentoring services. In addition to working with GROW (NZ), his client list includes UK NHS and SSAFA Trusts, Compass Ltd (NZ), CRUSE, HM Forces, Helsinki Psychotherapy Institute, Korzybski Institute (Belgium) Local Authorities, HM Prison Service, Compass Seminars Australia, SF Academy, Singapore and Krotkoterminowej Therapy Centre, Poland and Lviv-Bryukhovychi Seminary, Ukraine.

John has a background in psychology, is a qualified counsellor and a member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). He is also a presenter at both the European Brief Therapy Association (EBTA) and Solutions in Organisations Link-up (SOL), being a founder member of the latter.

John delivers a broad portfolio of intensive solution focused brief therapy workshops to many and various organisations, enabling staff to be more time- and cost-effective. Also, he has developed a special interest in three specialist areas.

The first of these is Solution Focused Recovery from Severe Trauma & Stress. As a SF therapist, he has worked successfully with many survivors of traumatic experiences such as military combat, armed robbery, near-death experiences, rape, road traffic accidents and sudden death. John teaches how both the basic SF techniques and advanced techniques are applied, for successful outcomes with such clients. His two books on the subject are:

• Henden, J. (2011). Beating Combat Stress: 101 Techniques for Recovery. Wiley-Blackwell; and, 

• Henden, J. (2017). What it Takes to Thrive; techniques for severe trauma &    stress recovery. World Scientific Publishing

His second specialist subject area is Suicide Prevention, and the book on this subject, which is currently being translated into Japanese and Russian, is:

• Henden, J. (2017). Preventing Suicide: the Solution Focused Approach. Second edition. Wiley-Blackwell

John's third specialist area is Solution Focused Stress Management and Resilience. (This is also referred to as Solution Focused Healthy Work-Life Balancing.)

As a counsellor and therapist for individual work, unsurprisingly, John’s preferred approach is Solution Focused. He finds this approach applicable to the widest range of mental health issues, including chronic depression, relationship difficulties, schizo-affective states, alcohol dependency; and, of course, acute stress and anxiety, trauma survivors and suicide prevention. Within the last 30 years, John has worked with some 400 individual clients from public, private and voluntary sector organisations.

As a trainer, in adopting an action-learning approach, John has an energetic and captivating teaching style, which enables participants to remain both alert and involved throughout.  His alternating use of short presentations, audio visuals, paired and small group work, ensures not only all learning styles are catered for, but participants find the training both enjoyable and worthwhile.