Staff Profile
Dr Gary Shepherd
Senior Lecturer in Counselling and Mental Health, Research Lead, Departmental Unit of Assessment Lead (UoA3)
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Dip. Therapeutic Couns; MBA (Hull), MRes (Hull), PhD (Hull), FHEA
After studying for an MBA and then an MRes at Hull University I undertook a PhD in Management at the Hull University Business School. At the same time as my PhD study I also began counsellor training in the field of Transactional Analysis. After graduation I began working as a counsellor within the charity sector and developed and ran a novel male-focused anger management intervention. My research focus is on male suicide prevention and how male centric community groups can reduce suicide rates through challenging hegemonic masculinity.
- School – School of Education, Language and Psychology
- Email – g.shepherd@yorksj.ac.uk
- Phone – 01904 876 103
- Research - View my work in RaY
- Postgraduate Research Supervisor
Further information
Teaching
I teach on the undergraduate Counselling and Mental Health programme and the postgraduate Humanistic Counselling MA where I have module lead responsibilities. The modules I teach include Research Methods, Independent Research Project, Dissertation, Introduction to Professional Practice, Developing Professional Practice, Professional Identity and Psychodynamic and Cognitive Behavioural Approaches.
In my role I supervise a number of PhD students and from June to September I run a summer school programme where undergraduate, postgraduate and teaching colleagues have the opportunity to undertake a research project leading to academic publication.
Research
Principal Investigator (PI) York St John Institute of Social Justice funded £10,000 Communities Research Grant "Menfulness Evaluation Project".
PI on £7,000 follow-on Menfulness Evaluation Project for the Institute of Social Justice Communities Research Grant.
This was a co-designed participatory research project aiming to identify best practice and inform the future development and growth of a male suicide prevention charity. The project explored the effectiveness of an online and offline support group catering for hegemonic men.
Secured £95,000 grant funding through the Humber & North Yorkshire ICB Health Inequalities fund 2024/25 for a new Menfulness development project.
I am the departmental Impact Case Study Lead for Unit of Assessment 3 (UoA3). Within this role I co-ordinate research activities around the York St John Communities Centre Impact Case Study.
Publications and conferences
Book Chapters
Shepherd, G. (2025). Humanistic Person-Centred Set Facilitation. In P. Cauwelier & G. Boak (Eds.), Action Learning: Facilitation and Coaching (1st ed., Vol. 1, pp. 29–42). Routledge.
Publications
Shepherd, G, murphy, H, Woodhams, J and Watling, S,. (2025) Using public spaces for male community mental health support.Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community. DOI: 10.1080/10852352.2025.2558388.
Farrar, Eugene and Shepherd, Gary (2025) How does involvement in campaigning, impact close relatives bereaved by gambling-related suicide? OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying.
Murphy, H., Watling, S., Woodhams, J., & Shepherd, G. (2024). What do men gain from listening to men's mental health podcast episodes?.Mental Health & Prevention, 200347; doi.org/10.1016/j.mhp.2024.200347
Shepherd, G. (2024). Humanistic person-centred set facilitation. Action Learning: Research and Practice, 21(1), 30-42.
Shepherd, G., Astbury, E., Cooper, A., Dobrzynska, W,. Murphy, H,. Whitley, A. (2023) The challenges preventing men from seeking counselling or psychotherapy, Mental Health & Prevention, Vol. 31, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mhp.2023.200287
Shepherd, G. (2020) ‘Normally I'd get really agitated, but I just laughed!’: What do participants reflect upon on a Transactional Analysis/Mindfulness based anger management programme? British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 48 (4). pp. 537-551.
Shepherd G,. Cant, M. (2020) Difficult to change? The differences between successful and not-so-successful participation on anger management groups. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 20 (2). pp. 214-223.
Shepherd, G. (2019) An anger management programme as an action learning set. Action Learning: Research and Practice, 16 (3). pp. 256-265.
Shepherd, G. (2017) ‘From where I'm looking it just seems like two people have missed the boat…’: Understanding set behaviour from a socioanalytic perspective. Educational Action Research, 26 (5). pp. 682-696.
Shepherd, G. (2016) Developing Deep Group Reflection within a Critical Reflection Action Learning (CRAL) Set. Action Learning: Research and Practice, 13 (3). pp. 252-262.
Shepherd, G. (2016) How a small family run business adopted Critical Reflection Action Learning using hand drawn images to initiate organisational change. Action Learning: Research and Practice, 13 (1). pp. 69-78.
Research Reports
Shepherd, Baxter, Perry (2025) Right Care Right Person- findings from a small-scale evaluation, Institute for Health & Care Improvement, York St John University, York
Shepherd, G., Murphy, H., Watling, S. and Woodhams, J., (2024). Menfulness Evaluation of Service Report. Project Report. Institute for Social Justice, York St John University, York.https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/10463/
Conference Presentations
Shepherd, G. and Murphy, H. (2025) "Co-producing men’s mental health and suicide prevention research with a charity partner", The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy International Research Conference, Manchester, UK.
I organised and presented at the one-day "Menfulness Conference" (July 2024) held at York St John University.
Shepherd, G. (2023) How can set effectiveness be improved by incorporating Person-Centred theory? In: 8th International Action Learning Conference, 17-19th April 2023, York St John University.
Shepherd, G. (2019) Do therapists ever get lonely? In: Alone Together Symposium, 10th-12th April 2019, York St John University.
