I joined the Professional Doctorate in Clinical Psychology team in August 2009.

My philosophical stance is that people have expert knowledge about themselves and what works for them; my expertise is a valuing praxis: joining in with people so they can find, recover or build on their unique (and also contextual) knowledges.

Hence, as a clinician in the National Health Service (NHS) I have engaged with individuals, couples, families, carers and groups from a wide range of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, within and across teams and agencies, utilising a Narrative Therapy framework.

I have worked jointly with people using services and staff to establish person-centred practices in the different Mental Health Services in which I have worked (e.g., Community Mental Health Team for Older People, Dementia Unit, the Memory Clinic and the Older Adults’ Outpatient Psychology Service). This included supporting people using services in taking a central role in their care and any decision-making.

In my previous post, I encouraged local Community Psychology developments, working in conjunction with older people, statutory and non-statutory professionals, for example, as part of the steering group set up to work with a local minority community. I also took a lead in setting up the first UK Support and Social Group for people with dementia within the Alzheimer’s Society and various Users’ and Carers’ Groups. At other levels, I promoted the participation and views of people using services for the development of local policies and procedures; for example, engaging people who use services to be consultants to these services.

• Lecturing across the three years of the Professional Doctorate in Clinical Psychology Programme.
• Academic Tutor for all Year 1 trainees of the programme.
• Personal Tutor for trainees across the three years of the programme.
• Director (and subdirector) of Studies for trainees at different stages of the programme.
• Coordinating Core Courses:
  1. Professional and Transferable Skills
  2. Clinical Psychology and Epistemology
  3. Assessment Competencies.
• Liaison with the coordinators of other Core Courses and Specialist Units to plan Year-1 teaching.
• Promotion of international links, knowledge exchange and meaningful involvement of people who use services/seek help.
• Research, writing and publication, and administrative tasks.

• Postmodernist epistemology; interest in the cultural, socio-economic and political contexts to peoples’ experiences.
• The Narrative Framework; reconstructing enriching stories for living, such as narratives of age and ageing.
• Teaching/learning as a dialectical and dialogical process.
• Qualitative research and, in particular, community action-based and narrative research.
• The contribution clinical psychology can make to social inclusion and equality.
• Creative and collaborative praxis with older people, women, minorities and other historically and still today largely oppressed groups. As only working together with the people who seek help or use mental health services, their families and communities, can we construct functioning models — not in opposition but as solid alternatives to the dominant medical model — reflective of the pluralist society in which we live.

• Professional Doctorate in Clinical Psychology

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

1. Castro, M. (in press). Psychology in Cuba. International Journal of Cuban Studies, 3(4).

Book Chapters

1. Castro, M., Whiteley, C., & Boyle, M. (in press). Clinical psychology. In R. Bayne & G. Jinks (Eds.), Applied psychology: training, practice and new directions. London: Sage.

Conference Papers

1. Castro, M. (2011). Narrative therapy with people with a label of dementia: pearl making when the shell is coming off. Paper presented at the 10th International Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference, Salvador de Bahia, Brazil.
2. Castro, M., Burton, M., & Melluish, S. (2011). Community trans-psychology praxis: what can European Community psychology learn from Latin America? Paper presented at the 8th European Congress of Community Psychology, York, UK.
3. Castro, M. (2010). Commentary: Psychology in Cuba as example of possibilities for psychology in the UK. Paper presented at the Cuba Research Forum Annual Conference, Nottingham, UK.
4. Castro, M., & Holland, S. (2010). Socio-cultural aspects of interactive human-equine rehabilitative skills training in the UK. Paper presented at the International Meeting on Neurorehabilitation: NeuroRehabana, Havana, Cuba.
5. Melluish, S., Corral Ruso, R., Domínguez Suárez, N., Torralbas Fernández, A., Castro, M., & Burton, M. (2010). Psychology in Cuba: a symposium. http://www.compsy.org.uk/Psychology%20in%20Cuba%20symposium.pdf.

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

1. Castro, M., Cockerton, T., & Birke, S. (2002). From discharge to follow-up: a small-scale study of medium secure provision in the independent sector. The British Journal of Forensic Practice, 4(3), 31–39. doi:10.1108/14636646200200019
2. Graziani, T., Castro, M., Menzies, D., & Cameron, A. (1999). A proposal for therapeutic group work with personality disordered offenders in the community. Criminal Justice Matters: Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System, 37, 34–35. doi:10.1080/09627259908552917

Conference Papers

1. Castro, M. (1999). Steering multi-agency groups. Paper presented at the Personality Disordered Offenders: Towards a Balanced Approach conference, London, UK.

• Member of the Professional Doctorate in Clinical Psychology service user involvement steering group.
• Member of the International Scientific Committee organising the NeuroRehabana event (which takes place biannually in Havana, Cuba).
• Member of the British Psychological Society’s Faculty for Race and Culture.
• Member of the Cuba Research Forum, the working group of Clinical Psychologists (both in the NHS and in Higher Education) coordinating efforts towards international placements.
• Member of the Centre for Narrative Research and the Dulwich Centre Narrative Connections.