Rex Haigh is a retired NHS medical psychotherapist who studied social sciences at Cambridge before qualifying as a doctor in Oxford, then training and working as a GP in Cornwall and Oxford. He went on to specialise in psychiatry, psychotherapy, group analysis, and therapeutic communities. His clinical interests are relational practice, ecotherapy, modified therapeutic communities, and service user co-production. His training in medicine included fringe interests in critical thinking in psychoanalysis and social psychology – then, when he landed in a therapeutic community for his psychiatry training, his ideas of ‘being a professional’ were completely blown apart. Since then, he has tried to remember and follow these radical ideas while also being a serious professional – as an NHS consultant psychiatrist in medical psychotherapy in England (1994-2022). Now that he is retired, he has had his ropes cut – and he can get involved in exciting initiatives to promote a wholly different way of understanding who we are, as individuals and as part of a very troubled system. Being part of these Living Learning Experiences is an exciting part of this!
