James Scurry

James Scurry is survivor of complex trauma - including child sexual abuse and vicarious newsroom trauma - who currently works as an Assistant Programme Editor at Sky News, as a psychotherapist and who is the co-founder of the mental health non-profit organisation, Safely Held Spaces.

He is an international mental health facilitator and university lecturer who has spoken at the BBC, Reuters, University College London (UCL), City, University of London and Canterbury Christ University.

James' journey weaves a dual narrative through the worlds of journalism, conflict and war and the mental health field. While working as a Junior Producer at Sky News over a decade ago, he experienced a mental health crisis which he attributes to the gruelling overnight shifts, prolonged lack of sleep and the distressing material he witnessed during the the rise of the Islamic State.

James was quickly prescribed antidepressants and sleeping pills, but felt as though he needed to address the root cause of his mental and emotional distress.

In the months and years that followed the Arab Spring he began meditating at a Buddhist centre in south London, where he discovered the healing power of mindfulness and Tibetan movement practices.

James went on to complete a Master's degree in Buddhist Psychotherapy at the Karuna Institute in Devon, and later set up the mental health non-profit, Safely Held Spaces, which provides support to the families of those experiencing extreme mental health difficulties–such as psychosis.

He is also the organiser of the MediaStrong journalists' mental health symposium, an annual gathering of hundreds of journalists from the world's leading news organisations, which focuses on the trauma experienced by those working in the press.

In addition to his work with journalists, James also works with serving military and veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress (PTSD) and complex trauma, and he was the lead psychotherapist on a groundbreaking study conducted by the Institute of Noetic Sciences in San Francisco which achieved an 85 per cent reduction in post-traumatic stress symptoms in two large peer-reviewed studies.

A firm believer that physical movement is a powerful medicine, James started to run and went on to complete the London Marathon in 2023. He was also invited to study in Berkeley in California at the United States' oldest Buddhist centre, where he completed specialist teacher training in Kum Nye, an ancient form of Tibetan yoga which is extremely effective for trauma survivors.