Dr Anna COLTON
• Chartered clinical psychologist
• Body image expert
• Child mental health and teen anxiety expert
• Performance psychologist
Overview
Dr Anna Colton is a highly knowledgeable, articulate and charismatic clinical psychologist, with over 20 years of experience in her fields of expertise. She combines her love of all things performance with her passion for understanding how our brains work.
Psychologist work
Anna works with both adults and young people across a broad range of emotional and behavioural difficulties. Anna specialises in working with children and adolescents, as well as elite performers – particularly those on the West End stage and at the Bar. Some of the key issues she regularly approaches include eating disorders, self-harm, parenting work, stage fright and performance anxiety.
Anna is passionate about teaching people to cope with distress, overcome anxiety and perform at their very best. She is a passionate advocate for early intervention in eating disorders, children’s mental health, and equipping adolescents with the tools they need to thrive from day one.
In addition to her private practice, Anna works as an anxiety psychologist on several West End shows such as Hamilton, Les Mis, Billy Elliott and Matilda. She helps both children and adult performers manage issues that are affecting their performance, such as stage fright and anxiety. Anna actually trained at drama school herself (Drama Studio London) and is a classically trained musician. This gives her an additional layer of understanding when it comes to working with performers.
TV and radio work
Dr Anna’s work and her accessible, warm nature have led her to appear regularly as a TV psychologist on our screens. A pleasure to work with, Anna is a frequent guest expert psychologist on ITV’s This Morning as well as radio appearances on LBC and BBC Radio 5Live.
Anna also works behind the TV scenes, advising TV companies working on reality TV projects that involve social experiments and studying human behaviours. Anna has been featured as a body image expert on Sky Living’s DKW (Different Kind of Woman) and BBC1’s daytime series Health: Truth or Scare?
Mental health campaigns
As well as featuring on multiple television programmes, Anna’s work has led her to working with the BBC on the BBC Mind Set’s GCSE campaign – the UK’s first national peer-to-peer coaching network for GCSE and national students. The campaign explored exam stress, targeting secondary school students across the UK and providing support and advice.
Anna also worked with the National Citizen Service’s body image campaign, where she featured as their spokesperson on programmes such as Sky Sunrise and Good Morning Britain.
Qualifications and training
After attaining a 1st in her undergraduate degree at Bristol University, Anna did her clinical training at University College London. Since then Anna has worked in the NHS and the private sector at The Tavistock Clinic, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Vincent Square Eating Disorders Clinic and the Priory Roehampton. She now works exclusively in private practice. Anna is registered with the HCPC (Health Care Professions Council) and the BPS (British Psychological Society).
Anna is trained in many therapeutic models including CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy), ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) and systemic therapy. She is also a qualified clinical hypnotherapist.
Anna lives in London with her husband, four children and three cats.
Social network and links
Dr Anna’s WEBSITE
CONTACT US ABOUT Anna
- +44 20 8846 0966
