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Staff Profile

Dr Gary Shepherd

Senior Lecturer in Counselling and Mental Health, Research Lead, Departmental REF Impact Case Study Co-Lead

A staff profile photo of Dr Gary Shepherd

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.

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

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 Practice21(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, 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.