About
I am a Chartered Psychologist and academic Health Psychologist leading a programme of mixed methods research around complementary therapies and placebo effects in health care. My interdisciplinary research has attracted funding from NIHR, Versus Arthritis, and others, and has been published in leading medical, health psychology, and social science journals. With an extensive network of national and international collaborations, I have held visiting positions at Harvard and at the Australian Centre for Integrative and Complementary Medicine at UTS. Drawing on this expertise and experience, I deliver research-led teaching and supervision to undergraduate and postgraduate students in health psychology and research methods modules.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Placebo effects and context effects in healthcare
- Complementary and integrative medicine utilisation
- Treatment decision-making and adherence
- Mixed qualitative and quantitative methods
- Clinical empathy and expectations
Current research
My research explores psychological, behavioural, and interactional processes that shape patients' experiences of healthcare and its effects. I also develop robust questionnaire tools to measure patients' attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs, and publish mixed methods research and methodology papers to inform best practice in integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches.
I examine how placebo effects, clinician communication, and other contextual factors influence patient outcomes. We have pioneered the use of qualitative methods to translate evidence on contextual effects into clinical practice, attending to ethical concerns, user perspectives, and behaviour change theory. I have led systematic reviews and empirical studies examining empathic and positive clinician communication and its measurable effects on health outcomes. We recently developed an innovative digital training intervention ("Empathico") to enhance communication in primary care and are now extending and disseminating this intervention widely, so that patients and clinicians can benefit from it.
My work is interdisciplinary and collaborative and has been supported by major funders including NIHR and Versus Arthritis. As well as collaborating with colleagues within and beyond Southampton, many of my students also contribute to the work we are doing.
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
As well as contributing teaching on our undergraduate programme, I have developed and still lead two major postgraduate modules in psychology.
- The postgraduate qualitative research methods module is delivered to MSc students and doctoral trainees in psychology, equipping them with the understanding and skills they need to use qualitative methods in their dissertations and theses.
- The health psychology apprenticeship module enables MSc Health Psychology students to work one day/week under supervision to develop core skills in professionality, research, training, interventions, and/or consultancy.
I have previously held major leadership roles in education including Director of Programmes in Psychology (2020-2024) and Programme Director of the MSc Health Psychology (2015-2021). I am an experienced supervisor for final year undergraduate projects, MSc dissertations, Educational and Clinical Psychology Doctorates, and PhD theses.
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
I have an MA in Experimental Psychology from the University of Oxford (The Queen’s College) and an MSc in Health Psychology from the University of Southampton. I obtained my PhD in Psychology from the University of Southampton. Following some postdoctoral work I moved to Primary Care and Population Sciences within the Faculty of Medicine to take up an Arthritis Research UK (now Versus Arthritis) Career Development Fellowship. Versus Arthritis also supported a visit to Ted Kaptchuk's lab at Harvard, where I was a visiting researcher developing a programme of work around lay perspectives on placebo effects. My work on psychological aspects of complementary and integrative medicine led to being selected through international open competition as 1 of 12 inaugural international complementary medicine research fellows at the Australian Research Centre for Complementary and Integrative Medicine, University of Technology Sydney. Back in Southampton, in 2012 I took up a Lectureship in Health Psychology, becoming Associate Professor in 2015 and Professor of Health Psychology in 2022. I maintain formal and informal links with other institutions and am currently Honorary Visiting Professor, at HSU Health Sciences University.
Prizes
- NIHR Doctoral Fellowship (2023)
- NIHR Doctoral Fellowship (2023)