My friend and colleague Kate Robertson, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 65, was a child and adolescent psychotherapist who was head of child psychotherapy at the London city of Hammersmith and Fulham and chairman of the Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP). She was a passionate advocate for expanding access to the child psychotherapy profession and helped to expand government funding for NHS child psychotherapy training.
Kate was born in Theydon Bois in Essex, the second daughter of Beryl (née Jenkins), a secretary, and Bob Robertson, a company director. When she was 17, her mother died suddenly, and she went to live with her older sister, Hazel, who supported her while she continued her A-levels at Penwortham School in Preston, Lancashire. She went on to the University of Sussexwhere she earned a degree in philosophy.
In the early 1980s, Kate volunteered with the Wageless Women charity, campaigning to differentiate women’s benefits from those of their peers. For the next 20 years she worked as a welfare benefits adviser and trainer at Advice Center in the Blue, a London-based charity, and at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. She then helped set up a program to maximize the income of social care clients in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
While undertaking a part-time course in psychoanalytic observation at the Tavistock Clinic in London in the late 90s, she became interested in training as a child psychotherapist and qualified at the Tavistock in 2007.
Over the next five years, Kate worked in child and adolescent mental health services in London before becoming Head of Child Psychotherapy in Hammersmith and Fulham (2012-18) and Chair of the ACP (2021-23).
She had a special talent for engaging children, especially those with challenging, confusing and provocative behaviour. Once she told me that for two years she worked intensively with a severely disabled seven-year-old boy in a special school. He repeatedly banged his head against floors, doors and walls, which Kate recognized as a way of communicating. She carefully watched the shift in his interest from clapping to singing, realizing that he was responding to the rhythm of the sessions and building on the growing emotional understanding between them.
As well as being a strong independent thinker, Kate was an excellent conversationalist with a thoughtful, unhurried way of speaking and an ability to listen attentively, taking great delight in her relationships with women and men and in her very close friendships . Her dry, irreverent humor contributed to her willingness to acknowledge human complexity, including her own, with courage and determination.
She is survived by Hazel, her niece, Rebecca, her nephew, Matthew, and three great-nieces.
