Research Clinical Psychologist

at  Kings College London

Job id: 099365. Salary: £51,974 - £71,857 per annum pro rata, including London Weighting Allowance.
Posted: 07 November 2024. Closing date: 12 November 2024.
Business unit: IoPPN. Department: Psychology.
Contact details: Colette Hirsch. Colette.Hirsch@kcl.ac.uk
Location: Denmark Hill Campus. Category: Research.
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About us
About the Department of Psychology
The Department’s research interests span a wide range of mental health disorders and physical health problems, including anxiety disorders, trauma, somatoform disorders, pain, psychosis, depression, antisocial personality, disorders in childhood and adolescence, emotion and personality, and neurodegeneration. In physical health, we work at the interface between physical health and mental health and wellbeing, focusing on the development and evaluation of new psychological treatments and on understanding the mechanisms that maintain psychological distress. Much of our past work has informed UK national treatment guidelines in mental and physical health. The breadth of research expertise has broadened considerably with the recruitment of ‘basic’ cognitive and social psychologists whose interests intersect with and extend our existing profile in translational and applied research.
Link to Department of Psychology webpage: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/psychology
This work forms part of a larger grant led from the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, link: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sgdp
About the Faculty
The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) is a Faculty of King’s College London and the largest academic community in Europe devoted to the study and prevention of mental illness and brain disease.
The IoPPN pioneers research into new and improved ways of understanding and treating mental illness and brain disease. The IoPPN’s greatest strength is the interdisciplinary nature of both its research strategy and educational activities, providing unique opportunities for students and staff.
Link to IoPPN webpage: www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/index.aspx
About the role
This post is part of a new Wellcome Trust funded Discovery Award to examine prediction of clinical outcome. A key psychological mechanism that maintains anxiety is the tendency to generate negative interpretations of unclear or ambiguous information (known as interpretation bias). We have developed a novel online intervention using cognitive bias modification of interpretations (CBM-I) to ‘train’ people with anxiety problems to develop a more helpful cognitive bias to generate positive interpretations, which effectively reduces anxiety and depression. In the current project we will use cognitive, genetic, clinical and demographic information to predict clinical outcome at the end of the CBM-I intervention and at follow up.
Specifically, in this project we will adapt and tailor the intervention for people suffering from anxiety who have different ethnic identities. The research programme will involve a large-scale study to examine prediction of individuals’ outcome from a course of CBM-I. The study will recruit 4300 anxious people to complete the CBM-I.
The successful candidate will be a clinically qualified psychologist who has clinical experience working with people with anxiety. They will be able to support people with lived experience of anxiety who will be contributing to the research. They will also have experience supervising others working with anxious individuals, and on the management of risk. They will have excellent communication and presentation skills, together with an ability to organise and motivate others. They will demonstrate enthusiasm, innovation and leadership when faced with challenges and will provide strategic, tactical and clinical input in the project. The successful candidate will be part of Prof Colette Hirsch’s Cognition in Emotional Disorders and Resilience group, at the Department of Psychology.
They will also work closely with other members of the Wellcome Discovery award team at KCL, led by Prof Thalia Eley who runs the Emotional Development, Intervention and Treatment (EDIT) Lab, KCL.
This is a part time post (30 Hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 30/06/2030
About you
1.Degree in psychology at least at 2.i level or higher and a post graduate qualification as a clinical psychologist (e.g. D.Clin.Psych; Masters in Clinical Psychology).
2.Excellent understanding of issues around equality, diversity and inclusion, along with experience of PPIE involvement in clinical service planning or research and dissemination.3.Promotion of effective multi-disciplinary team working using a flexible, adaptable team-working attitude, with an ability to supervise and monitor a team with tact and diplomacy.
4.Ability to use initiative, to prioritise work, to predict, identify and resolve problems that are critical to a large-scale study and plan strategically to avoid them. As well as an ability to maintain concentration, show attention to detail and have high standards of accuracy in all aspects of work.5.Excellent interpersonal skills, report and scientific writing skills, ability to persuade and deliver information effectively through presentations.
6.Experience conducting clinical research using digital psychological interventions7.Experience conducting high quality CBT with a range of individuals with anxiety.
8.Experience of designing and conducting high quality clinically relevant experimental research related to anxiety.
Downloading a copy of our Job Description
Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “

Please refer the Job description for details