Alan Corbett 1963-2016

On 22 December 2016, Dr Alan Corbett, a widely admired psychotherapist and pioneer of disability psychotherapy, died of cancer at the tragically young age of 53 years.

Born in London on 17 February 1963, Alan Corbett began his career in social work and, together with colleagues Tamsin Cottis and Stephen Morris, established a charity, Respond, in South London, in the early 1990s. Respond became the first organization in Great Britain devoted exclusively to the psychotherapeutic treatment of men and women struggling with disability, whether physical or intellectual.

For decades, many health professionals refused to believe that people with ‘mental handicap’ or ‘learning disabilities’ could benefit from the talking therapies. But inspired by the pioneering work of Valerie Sinason at the Tavistock Clinic, Corbett and his colleagues persevered in their efforts to speak intimately with patients who did not possess the linguistic functioning of most psychotherapy clients. Over the years, Corbett developed a sensitive capacity to make contact with brain-damaged people and with those who suffered from profound traumatization, which had rendered them unable to speak.

While working full-time at Respond, Alan Corbett embarked upon three trainings in order to improve his professional capabilities. First, he studied forensic psychotherapy at the Portman Clinic under the inspiring teaching of Dr Estela Welldon. Next, he undertook the training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy at the Guild of Psychotherapists. And ultimately, he completed his doctorate in clinical science under the supervision of Dr Georgia Lepper at the University of Kent.

Corbett's rich body of clinical experience allowed him to find an increasingly potent voice. He became a most accomplished writer, and in 1996, he and his colleagues published a book about their work with disabled patients, entitled Witnessing Nurturing Protesting: Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Abuse of People with Learning Disabilities (Corbett, Co