Dr James Kustow is a London-based Consultant Psychiatrist and Medical Director of The Grove Practice. He runs a truly integrative private clinic in Central London and also works in the NHS a day a week in the field of Adult ADHD, running an award-winning group program.

James is a general adult psychiatrist (and integrative psychotherapist) with experience working with the full range of mental health problems encountered in adulthood. He is a respected clinician both within and outside the NHS.

One of his main areas of specialist expertise is Adult ADHD. He works in one of the very few London-based specialist NHS Adult ADHD services and is a recognized national and international speaker on ADHD. He is on the Executive Board of UKAAN (the main professional organization for Adult ADHD in the UK) and is UKAAN’s Training Programme Director.

James has a pioneering approach to psychiatry. Over recent years he has developed a specialist interest and expertise in the overlap between hypermobility spectrum disorders and ADHD.

During this session, targeted primarily at adolescents and young adults, Dr. James Kustow, a Consultant Psychiatrist interested in the relationship between hypermobility and mental health, will take us on a fascinating journey of the body-mind system.

After overviewing how and why emotions are particularly vulnerable to dysregulation in EDS/HSD, he will take a deep, but swift, dive into the physiology of emotions and stress. Through a captivating tour of how our systems respond to (perceived) threats, he will highlight the central role of the autonomic nervous system and, in particular, the vagus nerve. He will explain how activating (or stimulating) the vagus can powerfully calm the body and mind, countering the ‘fight or flight’ response. He will introduce cutting-edge, physiologically underpinned ‘hacks’ to help you take more control of your emotional world.

Dysregulation of emotion usually serves as an indicator of a system under strain. Left unchecked this can manifest as physical and mental illness, and cause relationship disturbance.