Fiona Yassin is the International Program Director at The Wave, holding multiple credentials including being a registered Psychotherapist and Accredited Clinical Supervisor in both the U.K. and UNCG (Registration number #361609 National and International Council of Psychotherapists). She is EMDR trained (EMDRIA) and practices as a Trauma therapist (Registration number #10000054651).
Fiona’s expertise includes being a member of the International Chapter of IAEDP, with training in CBTe (Oxford Group), FREED (King’s College, London), TF-CBT, RO-DBT, and GPM. Her specializations cover the treatment of Eating Disorders and Borderline Personality Disorder, as well as families in High Conflict Divorces and Psychiatry across the female lifespan.
Additionally, Fiona holds the distinction of being a Fellow of APPCH, a senior accredited Addiction Professional, and a member of The Association of Child Protection Professionals. She is also trained in MBT (Child and Family and Adult) and Reflective Parenting with The Anna Freud Centre for Children and Families, and is a Member of The Australia and New Zealand Eating Disorders Association.
Fiona holds an MSc in Neuroscience and Mental Health awarded by King’s College London, where she received The Dean’s Award. She is currently completing an MSc in Psychiatry at Cardiff University Medical School and is a PhD Candidate in Mental Health Research at Lancaster University. Outside of her professional pursuits, she enjoys spending time with her three cats, going for long walks on the beach, and appreciating the beautiful animals in her garden.
Adolescence is a time of change. Some of these changes are outside a young person’s control, but others require making decisions. That might be what to do after leaving secondary school, which subjects to study, or decisions about relationships with others.
Chronic pain is common in young people. Between 11% and 38% of children and adolescents may cope with chronic pain as part of their everyday lives. Chronic pain is often invisible and unseen by others, an unrecognised challenge that affects a young person’s emotional, physical, and social well-being.
Eating disorders often control a young person’s life. They can dictate their decisions and choices, overpowering other goals, dreams, and values. At the same time, starvation affects the brain’s ability to think clearly, make reasoned decisions, and be resilient to external and internal challenges.
People often talk about depersonalisation and derealisation together, but they actually refer to different things. Depersonalisation is when someone feels detached from or outside of their body or mind. In periods of derealisation, a person feels like their inner world, body, or surroundings are unreal, dream-like, or altered in some way.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental health condition that usually develops during late adolescence. BPD affects the way that young people see themselves and relate to others around them.
Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions that are common among young people. The good news is that, with professional support, most young people can make a full recovery, reclaiming their physical and mental well-being.
Family-based therapy (FBT) is the most established treatment for anorexia nervosa among children and adolescents. FBT empowers family members to engage in the treatment process and focuses on restoring the physical health of a young person.
Parenting – and parents’ own relationships with food and their bodies – can have a big impact on how young people feel about themselves and their bodies. Some parental behaviours can encourage body positivity and positive relationships with food, while others may make the development of disordered eating behaviours more likely.
When you greet a friend, family member, or even a stranger, it might feel normal to compliment their appearance. Compliments are usually well-intended: we want the other person to feel good about themselves.
Many young people now take part in ‘clean eating’, a type of diet that involves eating foods considered to be healthy, unprocessed, or without certain ingredients like added sugar or saturated fats. Clean eating is often framed as a health pursuit – a way of eating that is good for the body and mental health.
Parental addiction affects young people in different ways. Parents are often unable to meet children’s physical and emotional needs when their lives are dominated by seeking a substance or engaging in a behaviour. In many cases, families experience role-reversal, when children or adolescents become responsible for meeting their parents’ and family’s needs, disrupting normal processes of child development.
If a young person is misusing alcohol, it’s important that they receive additional help. With professional support, teenagers can develop new coping mechanisms and address underlying experiences that underpin their behaviours.
In this blog, we offer some basic information about schizophrenia, treatment and recovery. We touch on the impact of schizophrenia on the family, trauma therapy within schizophrenia treatment and the prevalence of the disorder in different places around the world.
