Brutal Truths

Dr Giles Fraser is priest-in-charge at St Mary's Newington in south London and the former canon chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral. A journalist and broadcaster, he also writes regularly for The Guardian.

Stephen is Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Performance at the University of Manchester. In addition to publishing widely in theatre and performance studies he is also a theatre practitioner - variously as director, performer and writer/dramaturg.

He has worked collaboratively with a range of contemporary theatre and performance practitioners, including book projects with the Chicago-based performance company Goat Island (Small Acts of Repair, 2007) and with performance artist and 'drag king' pioneer Diane Torr (Sex, Drag, and Male Roles, 2010). He was invited by writer-performers Tim Crouch and Penny Arcade to contribute contextualising essays to books anthologizing their performance texts (Tim Crouch: Plays One, 2011; Penny Arcade: Bad Reputation, 2009). He has also published extensive interviews with key American playwrights including Edward Albee and Christopher Shinn.

Until May 2017 Dr Van Velsen was Consultant Psychiatrist in Forensic Psychotherapy based within the Forensic Personality Disorder service of the East London NHS Foundation Trust. Her post was as a Responsible Clinician in a Community of Communities Accredited Therapeutic Community, which specialises in forensic personality disorder in men. Most of the patients are transferred prisoners.

She trained a Doctor in London and went on to train as a Psychiatrist and specialised in Psychotherapy. She was Consultant Psychotherapist at the Maudsley Hospital for five years. She is a member of the British Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Dr Van Velsen worked for one year in the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture and completed research in the area of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She is co-editor of a text book of Forensic Psychotherapy and a section editor of the Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis.

Dr Van Velsen has expertise in the assessment and treatment of people suffering from a wide range of personality and other difficulties and has prepared many reports for the civil, criminal and family courts. She is a member of Forensic Psychiatry Chambers, which consists of a group of experienced psychiatrists providing psychiatric advice and reports to the legal profession. She has particular expertise in the understanding and formulation of complex personality difficulties and violence and has presented at many national and international conferences on Personality Disorder and related topics

For some years she was an advisor to the British Board of Film Censors in particular addressing areas of sexual violence. She was also, for a period of three years, an external examiner to the Guild Hall School of Music, Diploma in Music Therapy, followed by a period of three years as external examiner in the University of Hertfordshire MA and Art Therapies.