About

the Founder and Honorary Elected President for Life of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy at Tavistock Portman NHS Clinics, a Senior Member of the British Association for Psychotherapy, a member of the American Group Analysis, of the British Psychoanalytic Council, of the International Association of Group Psychotherapy and of the Confederation of British Psychotherapists.

In 2018 Estela was made Visiting International Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.

She is an honorary member of the Institute of Group Analysis and of the Society of Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists, Tavistock Clinic.

In 1997 Oxford Brookes University awarded Dr. Welldon with a D.Sc. Honorary Doctorate of Science degree for her contributions to the field of forensic psychotherapy.

In January 2013, the American Psychoanalytic Association invited Dr Welldon to accept Honorary Membership, adding:
“In proposing you for Honorary Membership, the Committee of Honorary Membership cited your pioneering contribution to psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, having been an important contributor to forensic psychiatry by brining psychoanalytic insight into that field through your work at the Portman Clinic.
The Committee felt that your wok of treating and teaching staff to treat mothers who have been convicted of abusing their children – which had been considered impossible because of negative counter-transference evoked by these women – is a model. Your ability to demonstrate the possibility of this treatment and then teaching others to do it as well is deeply appreciated.”

Dr Welldon works privately as a psychoanalytical psychotherapist and organizational consultant. She is the author of Mother, Madonna, Whore: The Idealization and Denigration of Motherhood(1988); Sasomasochism (2002), Playing with Dynamite: A Personal Approach to the Psychoanalytic Understanding of Perversions, Violence, and Criminality (2011), and main editor of A Practical Guide to Forensic Psychotherapy (1997).