My Name is Andy Williams. I am a Consultant Medical Psychotherapist working in Glasgow. I am a new executive committee member, although I have contributed to BIGSPD since 2007.  

BIGSPD provides a community of diverse and sometimes challenging voices brought together in an atmosphere which supports the development of relationships and ideas, with a healthy dose of friendship and fun. I want to ensure that BIGSPD grows from strength to strength and reaches out to new generations of clinicians and researchers who will embody the values of BIGSPD in their practice.

I have always had in interest in why services struggle to offer consistent compassionate and relevant care to people who have been given a diagnosis of personality disorder. This led me from a career in general adult psychiatry to train in psychoanalytical psychotherapy and MBT.

I have worked for 15 years with a service that offers consultation, staff training and access to therapies for people who are often under-served and overlooked who find themselves in homelessness. This has taught me to use these trainings flexibly and to adapt to meet the needs of the people we are trying to serve. 

In recent years I had the opportunity to work more strategically alongside colleagues with lived experience to develop better services. I am Clinical Lead for personality disorder for NHS GGC, and I co-authored a report for the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland in 2018 which led to the commissioning of a National Personality Disorder Improvement Programme.