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Staff profile

staff list  BackDr Sue Holttum

  • Job title: Senior Lecturer
  • Dept: Applied Psychology
  • Tel:
  • Campus: Salomons
Sue Holtrum

Background

Departmental Role: Based in the clinical psychology programme at Saloomons campus, Sue teaches a range of research methods and supervises trainee clinical psychologists' research. Having been a mental health service user herself, Sue enjoys working with service users and carers, and facilitates meetings between members of the Salomons Advisory Group of Experts by Experience (SAGE)| and trainees for the discussion of research ideas and ongoing projects. Sue also supervises PhD students.

Main areas of research: Training, mental health and social inclusion, personal development (including via the use of mind-body therapies) and arts in relation to mental health and well-being.

Other activities: Sue is a trustee of the British Autogenic Society|, which offers relaxation training at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, and is chair of ResearchNet, a network of service users and carers interested in mental health research and service evaluation, which was set up by consultant art therapist Neil Springham. Sue writes a quarterly Research Watch feature for the journal Mental Health and Social Inclusion|.

More on Sue's research interests and activities

Training

  • Research training for mental health professionals
  • Development and correlates of practitioner professional identities
  • Facilitating active learning via online and other learning resources

 

Mental health and social inclusion

  • Service user and carer involvement in mental health training
  • User-provider interface, recovery and social inclusion

 

Personal and professional growth and development

  • Self-efficacy, coping and recovery, especially in relation to depression, addiction and pain conditions
  • Autogenic training (a mind-body approach to relaxation)
  • Health psychology, especially mind-body, self-healing, beliefs
  • Well-being in mental health professionals
  • Positive psychology in mental health promotion and maintenance
  • E-therapy and self-help therapies

 

Artistic, creative and expressive activities and psychological well-being

  • The role of creativity and artistic activities in mental health training, research and practice
  • Artistic, creative and expressive activities in relation to psychological well-being and attaining life goals

 

Research & knowledge exchange

Autogenic Training

Autogenic training is a 'mind-body' approach to relaxation. Sue has co-authored publications on this approach and offers supervision on trainee and PhD research in this area. For more information about autogenic training, you can visit the British Autogenic Society |web site.

Research on personhood and mental health services

In 2010, Sue took on the role of chairing ResearchNet, a network of service users and carers with interests in mental health research and service evaluation, which was set up by consultant art therapist Neil Springham. In September 2010 Sue, along with some professional colleagues, SAGE and ResearchNet, launched a project web site to pursue their research on the topic of what factors lead to enhancing and positive experiences of mental health services for everyone connected with them, and especially those things that lead to everyone feeling "like a person". This project is ongoing, and information about it can be found at the Mental Health: Person to Person| web site. It is supported by the social inclusion organization Bromley |Develop|.

WhichTest?|

WhichTest? is a user-friendly web site for assisting decisions about how to analyse quantitative data. It also covers some basic statistics and research design concepts, and is arranged in such a way that users can fairly easily follow lines of curiosity during their use of the site, to brush up on concepts in the context in which they meet them on the site. Thus it is designed to facilitate self-directed learning. User feedback has been very positive.

The creation of this web site was supported under their 'mini-project' scheme over 2002-3 and then 2003-4 by the former Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) for Psychology, now the Higher Education Academy Psychology Network| . My collaborators were, in the first year, Robert Blizard, a medical statistician based at Royal Free and University College School of Medicine, and in the second year Professor Graham Turpin at Sheffield University, who teaches single case design and data analysis on the Sheffield Clinical Psychology Training Programme, which he also heads. The web pages themselves were created by Arcray Webmedia Ltd|.

Some recent publications and conference presentations

  • Holttum, S., Afghani, F., Boylan, S., Ehrabor-Usiade, P., Jandu, J., Robinson, S., Swan, P., & Wraight, S. (2011). Commentary by members of ResearchNet to ‘On learning from being the in-patient’. International Journal of Art Therapy, 16, 69.

  • Holttum, S., Lea, L., Morris, D., Riley, L. & Byrne, D. (2011). Now I have a voice: Service user and carer involvement in clinical psychology training. Mental Health and Social Inclusion, 15, 190-197.

  • Being a Person in Mental Health Services: Presentation with ResearchNet service user group at the Recovery Research Network, London, 9th Nov 2011. Slides available on http://www.researchintorecovery.com/rrn/archives.html

  • Eke, G., Holttum, S., & Hayward, M. (in press). Testing a model of research intention among U.K. clinical psychologists: A logistic regression analysis. Journal of Clinical Psychology

  • Moreno-Lopez, A., Holttum, S., & Oddy, M. (2011). A grounded theory investigation of life experience and the role of social support for adolescent offspring after parental brain injury. Brain Injury, 25, 1221-1233.

  • Wright, A.B., & Holttum, S. (in press). Gender identity, research self-efficacy and research intention in trainee clinical psychologists in the UK. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, n/a. doi: 10.1002/cpp.732
  • Holttum, S. & Hayward, M. (2010). Perceived improvements in service user involvement in two clinical psychology training courses. Psychology Learning and Teaching, 9(1), 16-24.
  • Yurdakul, L., Holttum, S. & Bowden, A. (2009). Perceived changes associated with autogenic training for anxiety: a grounded theory study. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 82, 403-419.
  • Holttun, S. & Byrne, D. (2009). Service user and carer involvement in clinical psychology doctoral training: Training as a professional and remaining human. Presentation and discussion forum. 10th Mental Health Nursing Forum conference, University of Brighton, 1st April.
  • White, J., Hunter, M. & Holttum, S. (2007). How do women experience myocardial infarction? A qualitative exploration of illness perceptions, adjustment and coping. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 12, 278-288.
  • Holttum, S., Goodbody, L. (2007). Involving service users and carers in clinical psychology training. Paper presented at international conference: Authenticity to Action, Grange-over-Sands, 7th-9th November.
  • Joscelyne, T. & Holttum, S. (2006). Children's explanations of aggressive incidents at schoool within an attributional framework. Child and Adolescent Mental Heatlh, 11, 104-110
  • Holttum, S. & Goble, L. (2006). Factors influencing research activity in clinical psychologists: a new model. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 13, 339-351.
  • Wycherley, R., Lavender, A., Holttum, S., Crawford, J.R. & Mockler, D. (2005). WAIS-III UK: An extension of the UK comparability study. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 44, 279-288.
  • Rankin, H. & Holttum, S. (2003). The relationship between acceptance and cognitive representations of pain in participants of a pain management programme. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 8, 329-334.