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Don’t be driven simply by money or short term goals – their allure quickly fades. If you take on roles or pursue research that genuinely engages and challenges you, motivation will follow naturally.
reached the end of my PhD I was having doubts about pursuing an exclusively research-focused career and was increasingly drawn to the practical application of psychology. I was lucky to be accepted onto the Institute of Psychiatry doctoral training in Clinical Psychology, which only increased my curiosity about the root causes of mental health problems. My first jobs were working with adults using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and at the same time in the NSPCC with children who had experienced maltreatment. I couldn’t help but be struck about how early adversity can shape so much of our sense of selves and the world, and set seeds for later unhappiness into adulthood. And yet the real puzzle is that for some people, early adversity is a challenge that acts as a spur to later success. Why such different outcomes? The paucity of brain imaging research in this area was something I found to be an extraordinary gap in our attempts to address this question. In 2006 I returned to UCL to set up a new MSc in Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology at UCL, in collaboration with Yale University. The timing could not have been more perfect, as Essi Viding had just started at UCL as a new lecturer. We had known each other years previously at the ICN when I was doing my PhD. I didn’t have an office at UCL and would camp out at her spare desk. In a matter of months (after many cups of coffee) we hatched grand plans for the future, and eventually the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit was born – even though at that moment in time, we were it! Since then we have built a dynamic team of post-docs, research support staff and students; it feels like an extraordinary luxury to doing something you feel passionate about.
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WHAT HAVE BEEN THE HIGHS (AND THE LOWS?) OF YOUR CAREER SO FAR? I now oversee four UCL MSc programmes and several diplomas, all focused on child development. It has been very satisfying to be involved in conceiving two of these from scratch with a group of talented and experienced colleagues at UCL, Yale and at the Anna Freud Centre. Working with good people is what makes the difference in terms of job satisfaction. Securing my first grant to use brain imaging to investigate the impact of maltreatment was also a huge high – and crucial in realising my research goals. Lows? Two years after clinical training I had a mixture of childcare responsibilities and a busy part-time clinical job – that was a tough time. At that point my PhD peers were speeding ahead in their academic careers as were my university friends. After a decade of learning and training - on very little salary - I was beginning to question if I needed to completely rethink what I was doing and move into the commercial sector. It took patience and nerve to hold out. I managed over time to take on three posts that brought together my clinical, research and teaching skills. This was challenging, but Peter Fonagy our Head of Department provides huge opportunities to be creative if you wish to take them, and I am incredibly grateful for that.
SLMS Academic Role Models