Jan Lees is a free-lance group analyst, psychodynamic psychotherapist, and therapeutic community specialist. Jan has worked in and around the field of mental health and therapeutic communities for over 40 years, and was at Francis Dixon Lodge Therapeutic Community in the UK for 12 years. Jan is a staff member for the Living-Learning Experience Workshops, and a supervisor for overseas Living Learning Workshops.

Jan has been Chair of the Editorial Collective of the Therapeutic Communities Journal, and Chair of the Association of Therapeutic Communities Research Group. Jan has also been a lecturer and researcher. Jan has conducted two major research studies on therapeutic communities – one systematic literature review, and one multi-centre comparative study, and has published widely.

Jan is currently a Director of Growing Better Lives, a greencare (horticultural therapy) Community Interest Company. She is also Secretary of Living and Learning, an organisation which provides experiential, and other forms of, training in therapeutic community work, and in working with people with personality disorders.

She is a therapeutic community specialist for the British Community of Communities project, which is a national quality improvement network for therapeutic communities, and also an assessor for the British Enabling Environments award, provided for mental health units – both projects are located within the Royal College of Psychiatrists.