Dr Emma Santhouse

Dr Emma Santhouse is an expert witness and Consultant Clinical Psychologist in private clinical practice at Manchester Royal Exchange, and Senior Clinical Psychologist within Salford Adult Primary Care Psychological Therapies Service, Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust, where she has worked in adult mental health for more than 18 years. She specialises in general adult mental health, psychological therapy for emotional disorders, trauma and post-traumatic stress reactions, with particular interests in depression, anxiety, mood disorders, bereavement, adjustment difficulties, relational difficulties, self-harm, post-birth trauma and postnatal depression.

Dr Santhouse has over 25 years’ experience working in the NHS and provides assessment and therapeutic intervention for adults with a broad range of common and more complex mental health presentations. Her current NHS practice includes individual and group psychological therapy, particularly for patients whose needs are more complex or who have not benefited from earlier stages of stepped-care treatment. Alongside her NHS work, she has maintained a private clinical practice since 2010. She also supervises therapists and trainee clinical psychologists, supports inpatient staff teams following serious incidents, and delivers workshops for staff and service users. Her clinical approach is informed by extensive training in CBT, psychodynamic therapy, compassion-focused approaches, mindfulness, acceptance and commitment therapy, metacognitive therapy and psychoanalytic practice.

Dr Emma Santhouse has been undertaking medico-legal work since 2023 and accepts instructions in personal injury and clinical negligence matters. She has experience acting for claimants and provides expert psychological opinion on causation, condition and prognosis in cases involving adults over the age of 18.

Her medico-legal practice focuses on adult mental health presentations arising in the context of injury, alleged negligence and trauma-related claims. She is instructed in cases involving depression, anxiety, mood disorders, PTSD and other trauma sequelae, grief and adjustment difficulties, bereavement, emotional instability, self-harm, interpersonal and relational difficulties, post-birth trauma and postnatal depression. Dr Santhouse is able to assess the psychological impact of adverse events and provide clear, structured opinion on diagnosis, prognosis, treatment needs and the relationship between the index event and the claimant’s ongoing psychological presentation.

Dr Santhouse’s clinical interests centre on the assessment and treatment of adults presenting with emotional distress, complex psychological symptoms and difficulties that have persisted despite earlier intervention. Her day-to-day work includes formulation-based psychological assessment, individual and group therapy, and the management of patients with overlapping mood, anxiety, trauma and relational difficulties.

A significant part of her practice involves working with adults affected by post-traumatic stress reactions, grief, bereavement, adjustment difficulties and the psychological consequences of adverse life events. She also has a particular interest in presentations involving emotional instability, self-harm, interpersonal difficulties and existential distress, where careful assessment of underlying patterns and maintaining factors is central to treatment planning.

Her clinical approach is integrative, drawing on evidence-based psychological therapies alongside psychoanalytic thinking to understand both current symptoms and deeper relational or unconscious processes. This is particularly relevant in complex adult mental health cases where distress is longstanding, multi-layered or resistant to standard intervention.

Dr Santhouse has contributed to clinical psychology teaching through supervision of trainee clinical psychologists from Manchester and Lancaster University doctoral programmes, alongside training and workshop delivery for NHS staff and service users. Her publications include work in Clinical Psychology Forum on later-life neuropsychological screening and the definition of clinical psychology, as well as psychology-focused essays for a general readership.