| Brief biography | Teaching | Research/Publications |
Position: Senior Lecturer
Location: AE.1.32, Stratford
Telephone: +44 (0)20 8223 4574
Email: s.cahill@uel.ac.uk
Contact address:
School of PsychologySharon Cahill studied undergraduate psychology at the University of Teesside (graduating in 1994) going onto study MSc in Health Psychology and Health Education at Edinburgh University (graduating in 1995). Her PhD was completed in 2002 (Glasgow Caledonian University) entitled “Women’s Experience(s) of Anger: Social and Personal Perceptions” using Q-methodology and a thematic discourse analysis.
As a postgraduate researcher Dr Cahill worked at the HRSD at the Institute of Psychiatry (Kings College London) for three years as a research fellow, managing two research projects focusing upon developments in service provision for mental health patients. Outcomes include: a valid and reliable mental health assessment tool - the Threshold Assessment Grid (the ‘TAG’), used for referral purposes across a range of mental health services; FOCUS randomized control trial, notable for its inclusion of the patient and practitioner as raters of mental wellbeing and also for feedback being given about both sets of assessment, with positive impacts on reduced admission rates. The Threshold and Focus studies are also notable for teaching practitioners how to use standardised assessments longitudinally which is not normal practice in mental health research or necessarily in everyday clinical practice.
Sharon has been teaching at different levels and with different types of students for over seventeen years. As a registered nurse she taught student nurses both theoretical and clinical skills. During her own time as an MSc and PhD student she taught undergraduate psychology students, medical students and health care professionals. These opportunities allowed her to develop differing styles of teaching (lectures, workshops, tutorials) according to the needs of the student. Part of her role as a researcher fellow/co-ordinator at the Institute of Psychiatry was to teach and train participants to use standardised assessments. The participants ranged from people with severe mental health problems to consultant psychiatrists. Attention to the participant’s level of understanding and ability was crucial in firstly developing a rapport to facilitate learning and secondly to ‘pitch’ the teaching at the correct level.
As Senior lecturer her main role has been to facilitate postgraduate students’ understanding of the complexities of qualitative inquiry. Her aim is to encourage, challenge and foster self-motivation in the student in order for them to develop the confidence to begin a qualitative piece of work. She has designed modules that offer the postgraduate student skills and experiences which launches them on their ‘adventure’ into qualitative research.
Sarah C. E. Riley & Sharon Cahill
It is a common-sense ideology that appearance is vertically representative, in that the outer surface reflects the inner self. This paper explores the impact of this ideology on women’s understandings of their Body Art. Meaning and belonging were identified as central themes in accounts produced from two focus groups with young women in Glasgow, Scotland who had piercings and tattoos. Meaning was constructed through two alternative accounts. First, that Body Art is meaningful because it represents a particular and valued subjectivity (brave, independent, different). Second, that the current popularity in Body Art endangers the vertical representation of the first account, making Body Art meaningless. To claim a meaningful relationship with Body Art, our participants drew on discourses of subcultural knowledge, ‘Othering’, authenticity, and rights. These discourses show that authenticity continues to be an important account in youth cultures. Authenticity both worked to produce a meaningful personal identity, but also a ‘mythical mainstream’ that denied other young women discursive space from which to explore alternative subjectivities through Body Art.
Last updated: 4 September 2009.
© 2010
Dave Harper, Psychology lecturer at UEL, is one of twelve scientists chosen as inspiring career case studies for a new report, “Critical Paths”. The report is being published by Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), who selected Dave from a country-wide search across a range of scientific disciplines.
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