Dr Esra Caglar

I am a psychiatrist with 16 years of experience. I work with children, adolescents, and adults and have a specialist interest in psychotherapy. I am interested in the scientific truth and my patients’ unique experiences. My aim is to support families and individuals to navigate through difficulties in life so that they can achieve their full potential.

After completing my medical degree, I completed post-graduate training in the specialty of general psychiatry in Chelsea & Westminster and Royal Free Hospitals and then extensive child and adolescent psychiatry training in Guy’s and Maudsley Hospitals. I took on a consultant post in 2011 in Brent NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and led the multidisciplinary adolescent and neurodevelopmental teams. I then followed my passion for psychotherapy further and had medical psychotherapy training in the adult department at the Tavistock Clinic. Alongside my private practice, I currently work as an honorary consultant psychiatrist at Tavistock Clinic. I have also received my adult psychoanalyst qualification from the London Institute of Psychoanalysis.

My experience involves working across outpatient, inpatient, and day hospital settings with patients from all age groups. I worked in generic child mental health teams, specialist adult psychotherapy teams, and national & specialist mental health teams including eating disorders, adolescent forensic, neurodevelopmental disorders, and pediatric and adult liaison teams. I am also interested in the influence of nutrition and environmental factors on child development and mental health.

I have an academic interest in the field. I have done research on eating disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry looking at comorbid disorders such as depression and anxiety with eating disorders and on neuropsychiatric conditions such as Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s Diseases at Harvard and Northwestern Medical Schools in the USA. More recently, I collaborated with colleagues on a project on suicide in the immigrant population in the UK and gave a talk at the House of Commons on World Mental Health Day in 2017. I work as the lead child psychiatrist at New Beginnings, a charity that aims to provide treatment to the traumatized, disadvantaged, and displaced children living in orphanages in Turkey. Our work focuses on reuniting adolescent mothers with their babies in the orphanages, training staff on attachment and trauma-focused therapy, and restructuring and reorganizing orphanages to allow consistent care and robust mental health treatment. I regularly mentor young doctors and therapists. I give public education seminars on mental health and write articles for journals and social media.

I am a member of the General Medical Council (6108444), Royal College of Psychiatrists, British Council of Psychoanalysis, Independent Doctors Federation, and the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. I am registered with the Care Quality Commission.

I speak English and Turkish.