Biography
I am a registered mental health nurse and lecturer in mental health nursing, with responsibilites which include teaching and assessment, supporting students, course development and conducting research. My clinical experience involves acute inpatient mental health care as well as psychotherapy.
I have masters degrees in both philosophy and nursing, postgraduate certificates in learning, teaching and assessment and research methods, and I am close to completing my PhD, which explores the experiences of crisis and crisis intervention for people diagnosed with 'borderline personality disorder'. I have also trained as a mentalization based treatment practitioner, and I still work with patients privately.
I have actively engaged with the mental health nursing profession, delivering the annual keynote for Mental Health Nurse Academics UK in 2022, and in the same year publicly raising concerns around the Nursing and Midwifery Council's neglect of mental health nurse education through Royal College of Nursing Congress. I also started a national movement called 'Mental Health Deserves Better' which uses the hashtag #MHDeservesBetter, and advocates for improvements to mental health nurse education at a national level. In the field of personality disorders, I have been involved with local and national groups, most notably serving on the executive groups of the Scottish Personality Disorder Network since 2019, and the British and Irish Group for the Study of Personality Disorders since 2023.
