Dr Heather Bolton

Dr Heather Bolton is the Clinical Director at Aligned. She is a clinical psychologist registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), having completed her doctoral training at University College London, followed by specialist training in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Heather spent many years in the NHS as a therapist and clinical lead, managing and supervising clinical teams, before moving into digital mental health. For more than seven years she scaled and led the Science function at Unmind, a market-leading global workplace wellbeing platform, building a team of psychologists and researchers. Her teams published peer-reviewed randomised controlled trials, created clinically validated assessments used by thousands of people worldwide, scaled therapy services across multiple languages, and embedded clinical governance into product pathways.

At Aligned, Heather is responsible for clinical quality: making sure that Aligned’s offering is evidence-based, safe and effective. She leads the clinical safety work behind Ally, Aligned’s matching assistant, and reviews and approves the articles published here so the guidance is accurate and grounded in evidence.

Heather continues to practise as a therapist, working in a warm, collaborative and pragmatic way and drawing mainly on CBT alongside Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), with particular expertise in OCD and anxiety. Staying close to clinical practice keeps her work at Aligned grounded in the realities of therapy.