Welcome
Dr Chris Salway MB, ChB, MRCPsych, Dip POD, is a consultant psychiatrist, he has a private online clinic that he operates from his home in South Devon. He offers a compassionate non-judgemental approach to helping people understand their difficulties and help them make sense of diagnoses which they may have had assigned to them.
Treatment Approach
After many years working as a psychiatrist, Chris Salway doesn’t agree with the dominance of the biological explanation of mental health problems. Therefore, he will only rarely suggest initiating psychiatric medications. On the contrary, where appropriate to do so, he will help people reduce and if possible, stop their medications.
Chris has moved away from wanting to spend a lot of time giving people “labels” to describe their mental distress. Some diagnoses can be of some help to people, but Chris would rather spend time making sense of what they are experiencing.
Chris will work with adults with a range of mental health difficulties although he does have a particular interest in working with people who have been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, involving whenever possible their family, friends and other health professionals involved in their care. Reducing any anti-psychotic medication, he advises needs to be done with someone’s community team and he wouldn’t be able to supervise this process. Whilst recognising that medications can play a role in someone’s treatment; he also looks to help people understand psychosis from a non-biological perspective.
Chris works using an Open Dialogue inspired approach which means he will often want to involve family or friends in some of his consultations. If you require in depth individual psychotherapy, he would, signpost you to appropriate therapies. Chris is registered with several private health care providers.
Chris’ Biog
Chris Salway qualified in medicine in 1989 from Leicester University Medical School, after completing his pre-registration year, he left medicine for 4 years, living in an alternative community in West Cork, Ireland. During this time, he developed an interest in herbal medicine, an interest that has continued throughout his career. On returning to medicine, he worked in general and emergency medicine in London for 2 years before moving to Somerset and training to become a GP. He worked as a GP for 2 years before then training in psychiatry. During his career in Psychiatry, he has worked in a range of adult psychiatry settings both in the community, in-patient services and forensic services. He has been a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists since 2005 and been on the GMC specialist register since 2011 as a General Adult Psychiatrist.
Chris completed a diploma in Peer Open Dialogue, in 2016, a systemic model for understanding mental health problems. In 2019 he completed an introductory herbal medicine course. He has also completed training in the use of medical cannabis for psychiatric disorders.
In addition to his private online clinic, Chris has several other roles: he works part-time at Exeter University in conjunction with the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital, where he is the principal investigator for several psychiatric studies using psychedelic medicines. He works for a private online medical clinic; Medisonal clinic and he is a member of the charitable organisation; Compassionate Mental Health where he helps facilitate workshops and organises the well-being team.
Cost of Consultation
Chris will provide a FREE 15 minute initial conversation for you to make a decision if you would like to proceed further.
Following that, the cost will be £250 for a 1.5 hour assessment.
Then £170 for a 1 hour follow up appointment.