Fiona is a clinical psychologist and a research tutor on the course, and also works in the Oxford specialist psychological interventions clinic as an BABCP accredited practitioner and supervisor. Fiona is a specialist in the field of anxiety disorders and perinatal mental health and is an active clinical researcher in this field. Fiona won a Peggy Pollak research fellowship from the Psychiatry Research Trust and completed her PhD at King’s College London in 2014.
Her research aims to better understand mental health difficulties and other stressors during pregnancy and the postpartum, in order to advance psychological interventions to give families the best start in life. Fiona ran the first psychological treatment trial of therapy for perinatal obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), examining the impact on mothers, parenting and the mother-infant relationship. Her NIHR Lectureship focused on evaluating psychological treatments for anxiety disorders in pregnancy.
Fiona’s research interests include adaptation of treatments in the perinatal context, and how to support parental mental health in the context of high-risk pregnancies and complex outcomes. She is particularly interested in equity of access and outcomes in perinatal mental health.
She is patron of the service-user led charity Maternal OCD which raises awareness of the disorder amongst women and healthcare professionals. Fiona is co-author of two leading self-help books: Break Free from Maternal Anxiety, Break Free from OCD, and a therapist treatment manual Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for OCD.
Fiona has been invited to present her research internationally and is regularly commissioned throughout the UK to provide teaching and training on perinatal mental health to talking therapies services and specialist perinatal mental health services.
Research Interests
· Perinatal mental health
· Anxiety Disorders, OCD, PTSD
· Cognitive Behaviour Therapy & Psychological interventions
· Parenting and mental health
