Contacts

Dr Ruger is a Counselling Psychologist and Senior Lecturer on the Doctorate in Counselling Psychology (DCPsych) at Metanoia Institute. She currently teaches on the clinical components of the training and previously served as a module leader for research modules. Alongside her academic role, Dr Ruger runs an independent psychotherapy practice, working with individuals, couples, and groups. She undertook further specialist training at the Institute of Group Analysis, and her clinical, teaching, and supervisory work is strongly informed by psychodynamic and group analytic theory. Within the NHS, Dr Ruger is the Lead Psychologist for the Intensive Care Unit of a county hospital in the South East of England. Her clinical work focuses on the psychological impact of critical illness and medical trauma, supporting patients and families following life-threatening medical events, prolonged intensive care admissions, and complex recoveries. In addition to direct clinical work, she facilitates reflective practice groups and psychologically informed interventions for multidisciplinary staff teams, including doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals, with a particular interest in the emotional impact of healthcare work and the relational dynamics of clinical teams. Prior to her work in critical care, Dr Ruger worked more broadly across physical health services, including chronic pain, bariatric, rheumatology, and audiology settings, supporting individuals living with long-term health conditions and the psychological challenges associated with illness, disability, adjustment, and loss. Her research interests have evolved over time. Earlier research focused on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, while her more recent interests centre on the processes of psychological change in psychodynamic psychotherapy. As a research supervisor, she has developed a particular interest in unconscious resistance in psychotherapy, psychosomatic experience and the symbolic communication of distress through the body, women’s experiences of pleasure and how to work with and attend to the menstrual cycle in psychotherapeutic work. More recently, she has become interested in the therapist’s experience of working with narcissistic presentations, including countertransference processes, enactment, and the emotional impact of this work on clinicians both within and beyond the therapeutic encounter.