PhD Clinical and Health Psychology

The PhD Clinical and Health Psychology programme provides the opportunity to do a substantial piece of research in an area linked to clinical and health psychology and to develop excellent research skills in the process.

Name PhD Clinical and Health Psychology
Start Date September and January
Mode of Study 3 years full-time, 6 years part-time
Programme Director Ingrid Obsuth

Please check the postgraduate Degree Finder to see the specific entry requirements, start date and application deadlines. 

When to apply

Applications will open for 2026/27 entry in October 2025. 

The School of Health in Social Science operates a gathered field approach to our postgraduate research applications. This means that all complete applications which meet our minimum entry requirements will be held until the next deadline, at which point applications received will be considered on a competitive basis by our subject area specific academic review panels. 

Deadlines

We will be running two gathered fields for new applications so please take note of these dates: 

  • First deadline: Monday 10 November 2025 11:59pm (GMT). Outcome notifications for applications received by this date will be issued mid-January 2026. Applications submitted after this deadline will be held until the second deadline. 
  • Second deadline: Monday 20 April 2026, 11.59pm (GMT). Outcome notifications for applications received by this date will be issued mid-June 2026. Applications submitted after this deadline will not be reviewed. 

If you are planning to apply for the University’s funding opportunities, you must apply before the first deadline in November. 

How to apply

Check that you meet the entry requirements

Before you apply for any of our postgraduate programmes, check that you meet the entry requirements. 

Things to do before you apply

We strongly recommend that you contact your potential supervisor(s) before applying.

Documents you will need to provide

You will need:

  • Undergraduate degree certificate and transcript (and your MSc degree certificate and transcript if required)
  • Research proposal based on the criteria for the programme you are applying for – you must use the form template below for your proposal, otherwise it will not be considered
  • Two references – some programmes require one of your references to be from your most recent academic institution, please check the degree finder for more information on your specific programme
  • Evidence of English language competency, regardless of your nationality or country of residence. We do not require this before the application deadline, but you must submit it before we can make an unconditional offer.
    • To find out more about our English language entry requirements, please visit the programme page on our Degree Finder.
  • If you are applying for the PhD by Distance you must also submit the PhD by Distance application form

Apply through the degree finder

Applications for most of our postgraduate programmes are made online through the degree finder. 

Why choose this programme?

The PhD programme offers the possibility to work with and be supervised by a range of clinical academics across many areas of psychology, who have international reputations and outstanding publications in their areas of expertise. Our programme is undertaken over three years full-time or six years part-time.

Supervisor Specialties:

Research Interests

Emily Newman
  • Online offending and viewing child sexual abuse images.
  • Media portrayal of relationships and its influence on intimate relationships and attitudes to partner violence.
Fay Huntley
  • Structured risk assessment; the use of HCR-20; how formulation can be helpful in supporting people.
  • Supporting the transitions between services to reduce risk.
  • Supporting those in forensic settings detained as a result of psychosis and offending.
Ingrid Obsuth
  • School exclusion, delinquency, violence, victimisation, and their links with trauma, PTSD, and complex PTSD.
  • Attachment theory and developmental criminology. 
Jessica Hafetz
  • Children and families' experience family court.
  • Separation and divorce.
  • Making family court more child-centered.
Jo Williams
  • Psychological risk factors for childhood animal cruelty.
  • Links between animal cruelty and human-directed violence and abuse.
Karen Goodall
  • Police and prison service.
  • Police perceptions of trauma-informed working.
  • Trauma-informed interviewing for vulnerable witnesses.
  • Assessment of intervention to improve police-public interactions.
Suzanne O'Rourke
  • Cognitive contributions to offending behaviour and risk.
  • Relevance of pre-natal alcohol exposure (PAE) or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) to involvement with criminal justice.
  • Prevalence of FASD in these services, risk assessment and how FASD might increase risk of contact with criminal justice. 

Research Interests

Zsofia Garai-Takacs
  • Physiological measures of cognitive processes, emotion regulation, mindfulness and spirituality.
Abigail Pickard
  • Eating behaviours in children and young people.
  • Cognitive mechanisms underpinning food rejection.
  • Eating behaviours of young children that are associated with adiposity risk.
  • The development of persistent fussy eating in childhood
Caroline Brett
  • Intersection between health psychology and positive psychology.
  • Determinants of wellbeing (subjective, eudaimonic, or psychological).
  • Traits, characteristics, and processes that help maintain wellbeing in the face of difficulties; constructs such as personality, resilience, and sense of coherence.
  • Relationship between individual differences (such as personality) and all aspects of health.
  • Behaviour change interventions and techniques.
Ewelina Rydzewska-Fazekas
  • Health needs/inequalities experienced by autistic people with/without co-occurring intellectual disabilities (eg. mortality, physical or mental health conditions, socioeconomic variables, risk behaviours, healthy ageing, barriers to healthcare access).
  • Systematic review/meta-analyses, secondary data analysis, big data, data linkage and qualitative approaches.
Emily Newman
  • Body image and disordered eating; consuming social media content; nature of online content.
Emily Pacheco
  • Psychological and social dimensions of health.
  • Response of individuals and communities to adversity and stress.
  • Psychosocial, behavioural, and contextual factors that shape health outcomes.
  • How evidence-based psychological approaches can support resilience, adaptation, and recovery across diverse populations.
  • Health inequalities, trauma, and global health challenges.
Ingrid Obsuth
  • Adolescent mental health across the life-span.
  • ADHD, emotion regulation, trauma, and staff wellbeing in education and children’s services.
  • Digital health; app development; intervention evaluation.
Jessica Hafetz
  • Prevention of injuries and illness in children and adolescents.
  • Influence of parent-child interactions on health, wellness and injury outcomes for children and young people.
Jo Williams
  • Impact of physical health conditions, including injuries, on children's development.
  • Children's concepts of health and illness.
  • Development of children's knowledge of specific illnesses with age and experience.
  • Educational interventions relating to health literacy in children and adolescents.
Karri Gillespie-Smith
  • Mechanisms and processes influencing mental health outcomes (eating disorders, depression, anxiety etc) in Autistic groups and groups with Intellectual Disabilities.
  • Psychosocial aspects including relationships, trauma, self regulation, intersectionality and coping strategies.
  • Autistic people who use alternative communication (historically referred to as non-speaking).
  • Trans/Non-binary Autistic people. 
Leonor Rodriguez-Estrada
  • Impact of chronic illness on children, adolescents and families.
  • Rare illnesses such as hemophilia, and also cancer.
  • Measuring wellbeing in children with chronic illness.
  • Designing and evaluating interventions; participatory, arts-based and technology-based research.
Maria Gardani
  • Sleep and insomnia as public health concerns.
  • Exploring the link between sleep and physical health.
  • Investigating lifestyle factors to improve sleep and wellbeing.
Monica Truelove-Hill
  • Contributors towards, outcomes of, and protective factors against parental stress and burnout
Paul Graham Morris
  • Wellbeing benefits of nature; gardening, walking in nature or engaging with wildlife.
  • Preventative health approaches to reduce risk of distress or mental health difficulties.
  • How differing eco-emotions relate to variables such as environmental behaviour or values.
  • Engagement with psychological services; benefits and barriers to public engagement with existing psychology services; public views on reducing barriers to engagement.
  • Behaviour changes and improvements in valued living and wellbeing.

Research Interests

Zsofia Garai-Takacs
  • Mindfulness induction and emotion induction experiments.
  • Conducting experiments on spirituality.
  • Conducting lab- and school-based experiments.
  • Meta-analyses.
Elizabeth Kirkham
  • Neurocognitive mechanisms of mental illness and early life stress.
  • Neurocognitive mechanisms of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
  • Task-based measures (e.g. responding to emotional facial expressions, stop-signal task); neuroimaging measures; questionnaire-based measures.
Emily Pacheco
  • Understanding human social cognition, identity, and behaviour.
  • Applying experimental methods to real-world questions, especially in relation to stress, adaptation, and decision-making under uncertainty.
  • Translation of experimental findings into practical applications, particularly within disaster, health, and global settings.
Ingrid Obsuth
  • Adolescent emotion regulation.
  • Physiological measures such as heart rate, cortisol, and skin conductance to examine stress reactivity, recovery, and attachment processes. 
Jessica Hafetz
  • Transportation psychology. Increasing the safety of the transportation system safer for children and young people.
  • Young drivers and child passenger safety.
Karen Goodall
  • Experimental studies relating to mindfulness-interventions, emotional experience and adult attachment.
  • Ecological momentary assessment studies involving attachment security priming and brief mindfulness interventions.
Tahcita Medrado Mizael
  • Understanding and reducing prejudice, such as race/ethnic, gender stereotypes, and LGBTphobia.
  • Behaviour analysis; Relational Frame Theory (RFT). 

Research Interests

Zsofia Garai-Takacs
  • Development of self-regulation: emotion regulation, executive function skills and broader cognitive skills.
  • Neurodivergence, especially ADHD.
  • Cross-temporal meta-analysis assessing temporal changes in children's behaviours.
  • Subclinical levels of behavioral and emotional problems.
Abigail Pickard
  • Cognitive development.
  • Neurodevelopmental conditions.
Alice Gritti
  • Gender Identity and Intersectionality.
  • Mental health and Psychosocial support for refugee children.
Angus MacBeth
  • Intergenerational Mental Health; perinatal mental health, infant mental health.
  • Developmental Psychopathology; attachment; mentalization and metacognition.
  • Longitudinal designs; interventions; data linkage.
Ewelina Rydzewska-Fazekas
  • Lifecourse transitions for autistic people with/without co-occurring intellectual disabilities.
  • Challenges and inequalities associated with lifecourse transitions (e.g., transition to adulthood, transition to older age, daily transitions between different everyday life contexts etc.).
Elizabeth Kirkham
  • Impact of early life stress on the development of the brain; relation to mental illness.
  • How neurodivergence, especially autism, interacts with mental illness.
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder.
  • Developmental research regarding (young) adult populations.
  • Delphi studies; questionnaire-based research; neuroimaging; task-based experimental paradigms.
Emily Pacheco
  • Impact of adversity, displacement, and sociocultural change on individual growth, adaptation, and meaning making.
  • Development of identity; relating to emotional, cognitive, and social processes.
  • Cultural, environmental, and relational influences on identity.
  • Integrating developmental theory with applied research and context-sensitive approach.
  • Resilience, belonging, and the long-term impacts of early life experiences. 
Fay Huntley
  • Parenting factors and their prospective associations with child outcomes.
  • Parental mental health/personality difficulties.
Ingrid Obsuth
  • How attachment and key social contexts shape development from childhood through adolescence.
  • Teacher–student relationships, experiences of victimisation and abuse, care experience, and patterns of emotion regulation.
  • Disorganised attachment.
  • Longitudinal studies; app development.
Jamie Kennedy-Turner
  • Attachment, family dynamics, and child and adolescent mental health, especially youth self-harm and suicidality, family communication, and parenting behaviours.
  • Attachment and mentalization theories.
  • Quantitative and qualitative analyses; mediation/moderation; path analysis. 
Jessica Hafetz
  • Separation and divorce among co-parents with children.
  • Relational aggression as a tool to harm relationships between parents and children.
Jo Williams
  • Typical and neurodivergent development (including autism, ADHD, and dyslexia).
  • Child and adolescent mental health.
  • Human-animal interactions (HAI); effects of pets on child development and health; animal-assisted interventions for mental health; animal cruelty.
Karen Goodall
  • Adverse childhood experiences/trauma; relationship to mental health outcomes, emotion regulation and attentional control.
  • Parental attachment style. Child dispositional mindfulness.
Karri Gillespie-Smith
  • Developmental trajectories of social cognition and wellbeing in Autistic children and children with Intellectual Disabilities.
  • Contextual variables (i.e. relationships, coping strategies, emotion regulation, parenting) and their relationship with socio-cognitive processes and wellbeing.
Leonor Rodriguez-Estrada
  • Developmental impact of chronic illness.
  • Developmental impact of bereavement.
  • Research methods and ethics of child and adolescent research.
  • Impact of age, gender and individual differences on death.
  • Bereavement interventions and death education.
  • Designing and evaluating interventions; participatory, arts-based and technology-based research.
Monica Truelove-Hill
  • The impact of parental stress and burnout on children
Suzanne O'Rourke
  • Pre-natal alcohol exposure (PAE) or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).
  • Neurodevelopmental disorders if inclusive of FASD.
  • Relevance of pre-natal alcohol exposure (PAE) in increasing the risk of other neurodevelopmental conditions or the misdiagnosis of FASD.
  • Prevalence or relevance of PAE or FASD in high-risk groups.

Research Interests

Zsofia Garai-Takacs
  • Anxiety, including clinical and subclinical levels in both adults and children and young people.
  • Experimental manipulations (e.g. mindfulness).
  • State anxiety.
Alice Gritti
  • Mental health and psychosocial support interventions in at-risk groups (refugees and displaced populations in Scotland).
  • Aid workers’ mental health.
  • Global mental health.
  • Widening access to mental health support.
Angus MacBeth
  • Complex mental health; personality disorder; psychosis; trauma; depression; anxiety.
  • Intervention development and evaluation.
  • Mentalization and metacognitive therapies.
  • Working with parents; parenting interventions.
  • Global mental health.
David Gillanders
  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
  • Psychological Flexibility.
  • Adjustment to ill health.
  • Cancer survivorship, particularly Prostate Cancer.
  • Palliative care, end of life, and bereavement.
  • Training and competency development in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Ewelina Rydzewska-Fazekas
  • Assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of co-occurring conditions/disorders experienced by autistic people with/without co-occurring intellectual disabilities.
  • Intersection of various psychological, biological, and social factors contributing to the state of ill-health or wellbeing in autistic people.
Elizabeth Kirkham
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD); neural correlates of OCD; neurocognitive mechanisms which contribute to the onset or maintenance of OCD; factors involved in chronicity.
  • Treatment and relapse of OCD.
  • Affective neuroscience of early life stress and its relationship to mental ill health.
  • Quantitative research; Delphi method; questionnaire-based research; EEG; experimental tasks. 
Emily Pacheco
  • Experiencing/interpreting/recovering from psychological distress; context of trauma, displacement, and adversity.
  • Culturally-responsive approaches to understanding mental health; how social context, identity, and structural factors shape clinical presentations and pathways to care.
  • Using evidence-based frameworks; remaining critically engaged with questions of access, equity, and relevance across diverse populations.
Emily Taylor
  • Attachment and interpersonal functioning.
  • Preventative and curative interventions for young people who experience significant early life adversity.
  • Care-experienced children and young people.
Fay Huntley
  • Working clinically in forensic settings, risk assessment, eating disorders and formulation.
  • Relational models and how these may support those in distress.
Helen Griffiths
  • Application of mentalization theory; impact of mentalization-based approaches on delivery of therapy and service provision.
  • Therapist/clinician mentalizing; optimising service environments to sustain and/or enhance clinician mentalizing.
  • Impact of therapist mentalizing on therapist-patient interactions.
  • Influence of therapist/clinician mentalizing on clinical outcome and process.
  • Service responses to help-seeking individuals with complex presentations.
Helen Sharpe
  • Exploring risk and resilience processes in the development of eating disorders using large surveys.
  • Development and evaluation of prevention and early intervention approaches for eating disorders.
Ingrid Obsuth
  • Adolescence in the context of life-span development.
  • Neurodiverse adolescents (such as adolescents with ADHD).
  • PTSD; complex PTSD.
  • Emotion regulation.
  • Clinical assessment; attachment-based intervention; adolescent services; app development. 
Jamie Kennedy-Turner
  • Psychological characteristics of those in mental health professions, especially in attachment and mentalization.
  • Influence of characteristics on professionals' interactions and communication, and therapeutic effectiveness.
  • Reflective practice and its use in healthcare professions.
  • Quantitative and qualitative analyses; mediation/moderation; path analysis. 
Karen Goodall
  • Psychosis; associations between negative symptoms and childhood experiences; attachment style, childhood adversity and trauma.
  • Attachment-based interventions for staff working with inpatients.
  • Trauma-informed working across services, eg. substance use services.
Laura Cariola
  • Language and mental health; dyadic interactions, psychotherapeutic processes, and intervention outcomes.
  • Minority populations and mental health.
  • Representations of mental health in public discourse.
  • Developmental experiences in migrant youth (including Third Culture Kids).
  • Developmental experiences in LGBTQIA+ youth.
  • Lived mental health experiences and media portrayals of mental health, and implications for stigma and support.
Maria Gardani
  • Onset and maintenance of sleep and circadian difficulties across the lifespan.
  • Association of sleep with mental health and wellbeing in addition to physiological and environmental factors.
  • Designing tailored sleep intervention programs to improve sleep and mental health outcomes across different populations.
Mark Hoelterhoff
  • Intersection of clinical psychology, positive psychology, and higher education.
  • Wellbeing, resilience, and transformative learning.
  • Strengths-based and relational approaches.
  • Psychological growth in individuals and systems, especially within university communities.
  • Intrapersonal strengths, identity development, and systemic factors.
Paul Graham Morris
  • Wellbeing benefits of nature; reducing distress or mental health difficulties among clinical populations; gardening, walking in nature, or engaging with wildlife.
  • Outdoor Psychological Therapy; conducting psychological therapy outdoors, evaluating provision of outdoor psychological therapy.
  • Reducing or prevent eco-emotions from reaching levels that have a substantial negative effect upon mental and/or physical health.
Sue Turnbull
  • Neuropsychological assessment, rehabilitation, support and adjustment to dementia and neurological conditions including functional neurological conditions.  
  • Neurodiverse older adults in mental health and dementia assessment and support.
Tahcita Medrado Mizael
  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT); Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy (CBT); Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP); Process-based Behavior Therapy (PBBT).
  • Clients from minoritised backgrounds.
  • Cultural competence.
  • Assessing and improving psychological therapies for non-White, LGBTQIA+, autistic and other minorisited groups.
  • Feminist approaches to psychotherapy and affirmative therapy.
Tim Bird
  • Development of psychopathology.
  • Mediators of change in psychological therapies.
  • Mentalising; relationship between mentalising and wellbeing in psychological therapy trainees; impact of therapist mentalising on therapist-patient interactions in psychological therapies.

In the first year, students typically choose a number of optional taught postgraduate courses from within the School of Health in Social Science, or other Schools within the University, as appropriate to their research programme, and as agreed with their supervisor. Subsequent years of the PhD programme primarily focus on the completion and analysis of the main research, which can then be written up and completed by the end of the third year. 

Alexandros KapataisAlexandros is currently studying university students' experience of the peak performance state, known as flow, with the aim of understanding and promoting the flow state within higher education, as a way to enhance student wellbeing, engagement and performance
Alicia GroomCamouflaging behaviours in Autistic adolescent girls and the impact on the diagnostic process
Ally Pax Arcari MairAutism & Grief: a mixed-methods study on the perception of grief and loss experienced by autistic adults
Amber RamosIntegrating cognitive, behavioral and veterinary healthcare using applied behavior analysis to improve health and welfare in captive marine mammals
Aradhita GuptaUnderstanding the process and impacts of narcissistic parenting
Asaly SkrenesDisclosure experiences of and resilience in male survivors of childhood sexual abuse
Catarina GaglianoneThe Impact of Soothing Images on Prospective Visual Imagery and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression
Cristian Alcaino MaldonadoBipolar Disorder early detection in adolescents
Dennis Relojo-HowellDigital mental health intervention
Ercan OzdemirThe relationship between childhood trauma and psychosis: Testing the Mentalization Model of Psychosis
Hamdullah TuncUnderstanding mental health through personal values: The effect of value priorities, value congruence, and valued living on depression, anxiety, and mental well-being
Hongen MaExploring the Role of Psychological Flexibility on Relationship Functioning Among Couples Affected by Prostate Cancer
Imogen PeeblesFriendships and peer relationships in inpatient eating disorders treatment
Isabella WebsterAttachment in adolescence: An investigation of collaborative and disrupted parent-teen relationships and associated mental health outcomes
Islay BarneUsing experience sampling methodology to understand experiential avoidance in clinical and non-clinical samples
Kate LeventhalSocially Transformative Resilience: Exploration of a new construct among marginalised adolescents
Kathryn HigdonThe development of a school-based psychological intervention for role-confusion and disorganized attachment in adolescent young carers
Koraima Sotomayor EnriquezThe role of mentalization and emotional regulation in risk and protective factors among community and clinical samples of young people
Katie BaynhamA mixed-methods investigation into the role of companion animals in the experiences of early adolescents with symptoms of anxiety and depression
Lillian ClarkPsychosomatic experiences in eating disorder development
Lisa GoldsThe impact of maternal smartphone use on mother-infant interaction
Louisa LeiThe Influence of "What I Eat in a Day" Social Media Content on Body Image Perception and Disordered Eating Behaviours Among Young Adults
MacKenzie RoberstonMaladaptive eating and body image
Mathilde LotteauCreation of a standardized assessment tool for fitness to plead in Scotland
Michelle CarrollDisordered eating and body image concerns amongst fitness professionals
Peilin LinHorticultural therapy and its acceptability and feasibility among the Chinese elderly population in a community (non-clinical) setting
Qiyue XiaoMindfulness and sleep outcomes in young people
Rabia AfzalCross-Cultural differences in humor use, altruistic acts and mental health among young adults
Rhys Maredudd DaviesAthlete and Retired-athlete mental health
Rita KalliniCyber Sexual Trauma and its relationship with eating disorders
Roberto Maluenda GaticaTherapist mentalization capacity, therapeutic process and outcome within an evidence based-treatment for psychosis
Rowena PiersCo-developing and evaluating a digital mental health intervention for young people
Rea MichalopoulouChildren, COVID-19, and Virtual Reality
Samar AlzeerTransgenerational Trauma in Arab Refugees: Approaching a Constructivist Grounded Theory to Explore Intra-Familial Trauma in Cross-Culture-Developmental Context
Sarah JamiesonKinship Care: What makes a kinship care placement successful?
Sian MuirheadA dynamic systems perspective on co-regulatory behavior among adolescents with anorexia nervosa and their parents
Siennamarisa BrownPro-Eating disorder online communities
Siti NuraeniAnalysing Parenting Support for Autistic, ADHD, and AuADHD Adults
Suzanne LawrieRSPCA Studentship
Yingna LiThe roles of intolerance of uncertainty and psychological flexibility in distress and quality of life for men living with prostate cancer
Yixuan LiMy research revolves around mental health in children and adolescents, with a special focus on cyberbullying victimisation and their mental health outcomes
Yuze ShiExploring Social Support as a Resilience Factor in the Recovery of Psychosis

The PhD programme allows you to conduct an independent research project that makes a significant contribution to your chosen field of study and to further develop your research skills. We provide expertise in a variety of research methods including qualitative and quantitative approaches.

A vibrant and inclusive research environment

The University of Edinburgh is a world-leader in research and innovation and an international centre of academic excellence. Students on this programme will become part of an active and diverse research community in the School of Health in Social Science and will have access to the wide-range of learning environments and outstanding resources that the University has to offer. Our postgraduate researchers work in close proximity to each other, enabling them to pool their expertise and knowledge to tackle complex challenges and push the boundaries of discovery. Students will be encouraged to engage with a wide range of seminars, talks, and events, and often have the opportunity to present their own research at national and international conferences. Our student-led postgraduate research blog provides a snapshot of the activities and events our PGR students organise and are involved in.


The expertise of our academics in Clinical and Health Psychology cover the whole of the lifespan, focusing on childhood to adult and older adult mental health and emotional wellbeing as well as the psychological impact of chronic physical ill health. Our research involves national and international collaborations, with many projects involving NHS partnerships.

Funding Opportunities

The School of Health in Social Science offers several fully funded MScR and PhD studentships each year. A variety of scholarships are available, which vary from full scholarships covering tuition fees and a stipend to cover living expenses, to partial scholarships.

Beyond the programme

The research degrees within Clinical and Health Psychology are designed to help you develop your skills for a successful future in research, as an academic or in a related profession. 

The PhD Clinical and Health Psychology is typically suitable for those who wish to pursue a career in academia or research, however, graduates from PhD programmes are also increasingly sought after in private, public and third sector organisations. 

The PhD Clinical and Health Psychology is an academic/research based qualification. The training for it does not entail clinical work, or training in therapeutic interventions and therefore does not entitle graduates to work as a psychologist in any clinical or applied capacity. Applicants interested in an applied career should consider the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology.