Job summary
Clinical Psychologist - Band 8a (0.8 WTE / 4 Days per Week including Wednesdays)
The Lighthouse: Complex Emotional Needs / Personality Disorder Service
Permanent | Brighton & Hove
A partnership between Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Southdown
An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced and compassionate Clinical Psychologist to join The Lighthouse, a specialist service for people with complex emotional needs and personality disorder.
The Lighthouse provides an intensive therapeutic community model across three days each week, offering Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT), a structured groups programme, and meaningful peer involvement. Our work is grounded in trauma-informed principles, supporting people who have often experienced significant abuse, rejection, neglect and relational difficulties.
Main duties of the job
About the Role
As part of our multidisciplinary team, you will:
- Deliver specialist psychological assessment, formulation and intervention, with a strong emphasis on Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT) and group-based approaches for people with complex emotional needs and personality disorder.
- Provide expert consultation and psychological guidance to colleagues and partner services involved in clients' care.
- Offer clinical supervision to team members, psychology trainees and others delivering psychologically informed interventions within the service.
- Contribute to service development, audit and research, shaping the ongoing evolution of the Lighthouse model.
- Work autonomously within professional frameworks while contributing actively to the wider therapeutic community.
About You
We are looking for a Clinical Psychologist who:
- Has experience or a strong interest in MBT, complex emotional needs, and personality disorder.
- Values collaborative, trauma-informed, community-based approaches.
- Is reflective, compassionate and able to work effectively with complexity and risk.
- Enjoys multidisciplinary work and contributes positively to team culture.
- Is committed to ongoing learning, supervision and professional growth.
About us
Working for Our Organisation
We are a friendly, compassionate multidisciplinary team committed to supporting the wellbeing of the people who use our service--and each other. As a partnership between Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Southdown, we provide specialist support for people with complex emotional needs and personality disorder through an intensive therapeutic community model.
Sussex Partnership is one of the UK's largest mental health and learning disability Trusts, with a strong focus on high-quality, trauma-informed, person-centred care. Staff wellbeing is central to our approach, and we aim to ensure that our support, rewards and development opportunities reflect the value of the work our teams do.
You can expect access to psychological and wellbeing support, specialist supervision including MBT and reflective practice, flexible working options, a wide range of staff discounts, generous annual leave (27 days + bank holidays), and an excellent NHS pension scheme.
Flexible Working
We encourage flexible working because a positive work/life balance supports wellbeing and strengthens the care we provide. Options may include part-time hours, home-working for suitable duties, flexible start/finish times and adjusted working patterns. If it works for you and for the role, we will do our best to make it happen.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Person Specification Brief Summary (Essential Criteria, MBTAligned)
Qualifications (Essential)
- Doctorallevel qualification in Clinical or Counselling Psychology, or equivalent, enabling relevant professional registration.
- Formal training covering psychopathology, psychometrics, lifespan development, and evidencebased therapeutic models.
- Relevant professional registration (e.g., HCPC or equivalent regulatory body).
- Commitment to completing (or already having) MentalizationBased Treatment (MBT) training.
Knowledge & Experience (Essential)
- Postqualification experience delivering specialist psychological assessment, formulation and intervention for people with complex emotional needs and personality disorder.
- Experience working in emotionally demanding settings requiring a mentalizing, relational and traumainformed approach.
- Experience facilitating psychologically informed therapeutic groups, ideally within structured models such as MBT.
- Experience providing consultation to multidisciplinary teams, supporting formulation, treatment planning and mentalizing practice.
- Experience delivering clinical supervision to trainees or MDT colleagues within a psychological or mentalizing framework.
Skills (Essential)
- Advanced skills in complex psychological assessment and formulation, integrating developmental, attachment and interpersonal factors that influence mentalizing capacity.
- Ability to communicate highly sensitive, complex information clearly and collaboratively while maintaining a mentalizing stance.
- Capacity to remain curious, open and reflective when working with interpersonal challenges, emotional intensity and risk.
- Skills in (or willingness to develop skills in) MBTinformed interventions, including group facilitation and hereandnow mentalizing techniques.
- Strong formulationled risk assessment and risk management abilities.
- Ability to teach, present and support others in mentalizingbased practice.
Values & Behaviours (Essential)
- Commitment to core MBT values: curiosity, collaboration, nonjudgement and a notknowing stance.
- Belief in the capacity for growth, learning and meaningful recovery for people with complex emotional needs.
- Commitment to traumainformed, relational, coproduced and personcentred practice.
- Dedication to reflective practice, supervision and supporting a psychologically safe, mentalizing team culture.
- Strong commitment to equity, diversity and antidiscriminatory practice.
- Ability to remain steady, compassionate and reflective when working with distress and interpersonal intensity.
SPFT is committed to building a workforce that reflects the communities we serve. We particularly welcome applications from people fromBlack, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgroundsand fromdisabled candidates, as these groups are currently underrepresented.
Successful candidates are normally appointed to the bottom of the pay scale unless previous NHS experience in a similar role can be evidenced.
SPFT takes its responsibilities forsafeguarding children, young people and adults at riskvery seriously. We expect all staff and bank workers to share this commitment and complete the relevant safeguarding training for their role.
If you have not heard from us within three weeks of the closing date, please assume your application has been unsuccessful. However, well always do our best to keep you informed as we know how much time and care goes into applying for a role.
In the event of a high number of applications, we may close this vacancy early.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Post-graduate doctoral level training in applied psychology as approved by the HCPC, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology
Knowledge/Experience
Essential
- Experience in highly specialist psychological assessment and treatment across outpatient, community, primary care, and inpatient settings.
- Post-qualification experience as a practitioner psychologist with approximately 50 hours of clinical supervision.
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, design and complex data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of applied psychology
- Experience working with diverse client groups across the lifespan, addressing a wide range of clinical severities, and maintaining a high degree of professionalism in challenging situations
- Skilled in teaching, training and/or supervision
- Experience of applying psychology in different cultural contexts and working within a multicultural framework
- Experience of representing psychology within the context of multidisciplinary care
- Experience or demonstrable knowledge of working with the particular client group served by the team/service.
- Knowledge of relevant national and local guidance, legislation, and mental health frameworks.
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialist psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc)
- High-level proficiency in at least two specialised psychological therapies and neuropsychology, with continued practice or training post-qualification
- Formal training in supervision of other psychologists
- Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the HCPC
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Employer details
Employer name
Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Address
Lighthouse
60 Sackville Gardens
Hove
BN3 4GH
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.sussexpartnership.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)
This listing was aggregated from publicly-available sources. The employer holds an A-rated sponsor licence at the time of this listing, but sponsorship of this specific role is not guaranteed — the employer's offer and UK Visas and Immigration are the final authority. Details may have changed since our last update — verify with the employer via the Apply link.