Dr Amber Keenan

Amber enjoys working collaboratively with people who wish to gain a better understanding of their identity, as part of a journey of exploration and personal growth. She provides a safe place to explore how individual differences and experiences affect self-esteem, wellbeing, and relationships. Amber encourages people to understand these differences, learn to embrace them, and move forward from “stuck” places. Such experiences may include depression, anxiety, phobias, obsessive-compulsiveness, post-traumatic stress, complicated grief, body image issues, somatisation, adjustment problems, relational difficulties, and attachment trauma. This stuck feeling may also be associated with unexpected life changing circumstances, including difficulties stemming from injuries, illness or bereavement. Amber regularly works with adults (including over 65s) with co-morbid physical health conditions, neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g., ADHD & ASD) and gender differences. She is able to support exploration of sexuality and/or gender identity where desired.

Amber specialises in complex mental health issues in adults. Much of Amber’s work is underpinned by Schema Therapy, and more broadly, by the principals of intersectionality. She regularly incorporates, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, Mindfulness, Behavioural Activation, Compassionate Mind, and Phase-based Interventions in her work. Amber also specialises in gender dysphoria and she is registered as a gender specialist with HM Courts & Tribunals Service. Amber has been an active member of the Scottish Government Expert Advisory Group on Ending Conversion Practices. She works therapeutically with LGBTQ+ survivors of conversion.

Amber has expertise in medicolegal work, where mental health and the law intersect. She is certified as an expert witness by the University of Aberdeen School of Law and has provided expert witness reports in civil cases since 2016 in adult mental health. Amber is very familiar with the psychological consequences of accidents, historical abuse in care settings, and clinical negligence as she also provides psychological therapy for people going through compensation claims. Amber has considerable experience in the delivery of training and consultation for the law profession, and legal charitable organisations.

Amber graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 2007 with first class honours in Psychology before completing her Masters in Neuroscience and Psychiatry in 2008 at the University of Manchester. Since this time, Amber has been employed within various NHS, University and Private Sector settings, completing her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Edinburgh in 2012. Amber has held various senior clinical positions in the NHS, predominantly in secondary care mental health services, and she is the former clinical lead of an NHS Gender Identity Clinic (GIC). She is an external clinical lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. 

• Bond Solon Expert Witness Certificate (University of Aberdeen School of Law)
• BPS Expert Witness Training (British Psychological Society)
• Expert Witness Training for Medical Professionals: Scotland (Inspire Medilaw)
• Law for Experts: Scotland (Expert Witness Institute)
• Pain and Medicolegal Workshop (Expert Witness Institute)
• Witness Familiarisation Training (BB Consultation)
• EMDR Level 1, 2 & 3 (EMDR Works)
• Generic and Specialist Clinical Supervision (NHS Education Scotland, NES)
• Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Psychosis (NES)
• Trauma in Later Life: Psychological Interventions for Specialist Practitioners (NES)
• Training the Trainers in Behavioural Activation for Depression (NES)
• Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (NHS Grampian)
• Selection Awareness Training (NES)
• STEPPS for Borderline Personality Disorder (NES)
• Gender Dysphoria National Referral Support Service Training (GDNRSS)