Dr. Aaron Balick is a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, author, psychological consultant, and honorary senior lecturer at The Department for Psychoanalytic and Psychosocial Studies at the University of Essex.
Aaron cut his teeth working as a counsellor for young people in London’s largest further education college, going on to lead the Student Support Team there. From that challenging early experience he learned that psychological interventions need to flex to the meet the needs of those seeking them out, and not the other way around. For more than twenty years since, Aaron has been committed to expanding the reach of psychotherapy thinking in a variety of innovative and accessible ways.
Drawing from his experience working with young people, Aaron became the go-to mental health expert on the iconic BBC Radio 1 live phone-in show The Surgery. He appeared on the BAFTA nominated BBC Three documentary Suicide and Me, became a columnist for the BBC Teens website, and appeared as resident expert on CBBC’s Lifebabble – a mental health programme for children that ran for two seasons (and is still available on the iPlayer). In 2014 he published Keep Your Cool an illustrated self-help book for teens, later followed by The Little Book of Calm for adults.
As a member of faculty at The University of Essex, he directed the MA in Psychoanalytic Studies and began researching social media. In 2014 he published The Psychodynamics of Social Networking, the first text of its kind that applied psychoanalytic thinking to technology. Aaron has gone on to teach, consult, and speak worldwide on this subject.
Over the past ten years Aaron has gained further experience in the world of business and startups as the co-founder and CEO of the international psychology hub Stillpoint Spaces. With four European city-spaces and a global online community, Stillpoint offered traditional psychotherapy, education, events, business and organisational consultation, and executive coaching. Sadly, due to the pandemic, Stillpoint closed its doors in early 2023.
Aaron now runs his private practice and consultancy from his office in Shoreditch, East London. He offers traditional weekly psychotherapy to both adults and teens, alongside psychological consultancy to individuals, businesses, and organisations. He is currently working on his fourth book.