Gertrud Mander 1927-2018

Gertrud started training as a counsellor and psychotherapist in 1976 at the Westminster Pastoral Foundation (WPF) and was one of the founding cohorts of trainees. For Gertrud, who had been a writer and journalist, this was a career change at a time in her life when she wanted to explore something new and it was clear that she had found her vocation and stepped into a journey of discovery which continued throughout her career as a therapist and supervisor. In her words, she commented that starting the training was like a ‘sunrise and the entry into a new world’. I first met her in 1978 when I started training and subsequently worked with her on both the supervision and psychotherapy trainings at WPF. Her commitment to the work and her engagement with the debates of the profession were obvious from the start.

Gertrud was inspired by her training and soon became engaged in both the work of WPF and as a supervisor in several of the WPF affiliate centres around London. This was a transformational step for Gertrud in her developing career. Learning by ‘trial and error’, and with the courage to take risks, Gertrud identified the need to develop trainings for supervisors and she approached the then Director of WPF and suggested the idea. The idea of supervision training was also in the mind of then Director, Derek Blows, and in 1985 he appointed Gertrud, together with Mary Anne Coate and Edward Martin, to start a trailblazing experiment to set up a supervision training at WPF. Gertrud became deeply involved in developing this training to ensure that it provided high standards which reflected current thinking about supervision and also met the requirements of external validating bodies. I worked with Gertrud on this training and her capacity to be both rigorous and empathic to trainees was obvious from the start. I was always impressed by her careful and detailed consideration of trainees’ progress and her gentle but firm ways of encouragement.

Gertrud was tireless in her purs