Andy Langford is in the fourth year of an eight-year part-time PhD with the Open University, funded through the Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership. Andy’s particular research interests are in grief, bereavement, mourning and men’s experiences of psychological wellbeing and mental health. His PhD is focused on how the grief experience of bereaved men is influenced by their engagement with telephone support. Andy is also interested in mixed-methods research, and exploring how critical realism can be understood as a basis for engaging with cause and effect. Andy enjoys writing, and has published pieces on bereavement telephone support, men and grief, and sibling loss. He has also recently published book chapters on traumatic grief, and an autoethnographic account of personal bereavement through the lenses of several established grief models.
Alongside his PhD, Andy works part-time as the Clinical Director for Cruse Bereavement Support – the UK’s largest and leading bereavement support charity. Andy has been working in bereavement for over 20 years, and in other voluntary sector direct support, team management and senior positions for longer. Andy is a qualified and British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy accredited Counsellor/Psychotherapist, with additional qualifications in cognitive behavioural therapy, clinical supervision, and life coaching, as well as an MSc in voluntary sector management from Bayes Business School. Alongside this, Andy has a small private therapy practice and consultancy, focusing on fostering staff resilience, dealing with high impact and potentially traumatising events, and working with suicidal ideation.
