Staff Profile
Dr Sarah Thwaites
Clinical & Academic Tutor
- Email: sarah.thwaites@ncl.ac.uk
- Telephone: 0191 2080297
- Address: Doctorate in Clinical Psychology
School of Psychology
Faculty of Medical Sciences
Dame Margaret Barbour Building
Wallace Street
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 4DR
I joined the Clinical Psychology Doctorate as a Clinical Tutor in December 2019 and have worked on the programme full-time as a Clinical and Academic Tutor since November 2020. I co-chair the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion sub-committee with second-year trainees and I'm also Admissions Lead for the course.
I trained as a Clinical Psychologist at Newcastle University from 2006-2009 and have worked in a range of NHS specialties post qualification, including Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), Community Acquired Brain Injury Rehabilitation, and Older Adult Mental Health and Dementia services. I completed post-graduate diplomas in Advanced Practice in Cognitive Therapy (2010) and Clinical Neuropsychology (2017).
Prior to my applied clinical training, I undertook a PhD looking at the developmental trajectories of anxiety and ritualistic behaviour in childhood with a view to better detect, understand and treat obsessive-compulsive disorder in young people.
My current research interests include understanding and treating uncertainty distress in family caregivers of people with dementia, as well as understanding the experience and implications of uncertainty for clinical psychology trainees during their training.