Applied Psychology Research

Three current and recent projects have focussed on aspects of disability or mental or physical health. First, Christine Kirkman has carried out a study of psychopathic behaviour in the community. Second, Corinne Barrow and Mary Todd (research degree student) are engaged in a project on rehabilitation after memory loss due to serious brain injury The Brain and Spinal Injury Centre (BASIC), a national charity, has provided invaluable support for their work. Third, Colleen Heenan completed an evaluation study of a feminist psychotherapeutic approach aimed at enabling women with BMI > 30 to make and maintain a significant weight loss.

In addition to the above projects, Anne Maria Keane has carried out studies on cerebral asymmetry, motor programming and hand preference.

Applied Psychology Research Publications since 2001 

Charlton, G.S. and Barrow, C. (2003). Coping with Parkinson's disease and the influence of self-help groups: an exploratory study. Health and Social Care in the Community, 10, 472-478.

Heenan, C. (2005) A feminist psychotherapeutic approach to working with women who eat compulsively. Counselling & Psychotherapy Research 5(3), 238-245.

Heenan, M.C. (2006) Psychotherapy research in a post-modern world. In D. Loewenthal and D. Winter (eds) What is Psychotherapy? London: Karnac Press.

Heenan, M.C. (2005) 'Looking in the Fridge for Feelings': The Gendered Psychodynamics of Consumer Culture, in J. Davidson, L. Bondi & M. Smith Emotional Geographies. Burlington, VT & Aldershot: Ashgate.

Heenan, M.C. (2008) Feminist Object Relations Theory and Eating 'Disorders'. In S. Riley, M. Burns, H. Frith, S. Wiggins & P. Markula (eds) Critical Bodies: representations, practices and identities of weight and body management. London: Palgrave.

Heenan, M.C. (2008) A feminist psychotherapeutic approach to working with women who eat compulsively. In J. Buckroyd & S. Rother (eds) Psychological Responses to Eating Disorders and Obesity: Recent and Innovative Work. Chichester: J. Wiley & Co.

Hornby Atkinson P., Barrow, C. and Connors, L. (2003). Models of police probationer career progression: preconceptions of the psychological contract. Human Resource Development International, 6:1, 43-56.

Keane, A.M. (2001). Motor control of the hands: The effect of familial sinistrality. International Journal of Neuroscience, 110, 25 – 41.

Keane, A.M. (2002). Direction of hand preference: The connection with speech and the influence of familial handedness. International Journal of Neuroscience, 112, 1287 – 1303.    

Keane, A.M. (2008). What aspect of handedness is general motor programming related to?  International Journal of Neuroscience (in press)

Kirkman, C. A. (2002). Non-incarcerated psychopaths: why we need to know more about the psychopaths who live amongst us. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 9, 155-160.

Kirkman, C. A. (2005). From soap opera to science: Towards gaining access to psychopaths who live amongst us. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 78, 379-396.

Kirkman, C. A. (in press). Establishing the truthfulness, consistency and transferability of a qualitative study by conducting convergent truthfulness evaluation. Nurse Researcher

Kirkman C.A. (2007)   Psychopathic personality disorder - A confusing clinical construct. Journal of Forensic Nursing. (in press).

Todd, M & Barrow, C. (in press). Teaching memory-impaired people to touch type: The acquisition of a   useful complex perceptual-motor skill. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation.