CAP Team

Meet the CAP Programme Team.

Dr Ciarán O'Driscoll - Programme Director

Ciarán is a Clinical Psychologistand Lecturer in Clinical Psychology. As well as working on the CAPs course he teaches and supervises on the Doctorate in Clinical Psychologyat UCL.Ciarán researches transdiagnostic processes that underly mental health problems with a focus on measurement (how to best assess these processes); modelling (identifying and quantifying the relationship between processes); and treatment (what interventions are best suited to address these processes). Ciarán has previously worked as a Clinical Psychologist in number of neuropsychology settings (community and inpatient neurorehabilitation), specialist PTSD and psychosis services. Ciarán has further specialist training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, systemic family therapy, Acceptance & Commitment Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).

Dr Madiha Shaikh - Deputy Programme Director

Madiha Shaikh is a Clinical Psychology Lecturer at University College London in the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences and the Deputy Programme Director for the CAPs course. She also works as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in North East London Foundation Trust leading the Critical Care Psychology service. Madiha has worked in adult mental health, including specialist mood, anxiety and personality disorder services, community recovery teams and in specialist psychosis and early intervention services. Madiha completed her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London in 2010 investigating neurophysiological endophenotypes for psychosis and their genetic basis. She then went on to complete the Doctoral in Clinical Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2014. Her research has primarily focused on understanding the biopsychosocial underpinnings of psychosis and is particularly interested in global mental health and cultural psychology and the development and adaptation of psychological interventions for psychosis.

Dr Ally (Payal) Tomlins - Deputy Programme Director

Dr Ally Tomlins is a Senior Clinical Tutor at UCL and works in the NHS as a Clinical Psychologist. She specialises in working with adults in acute and urgent care settings, older adults and dementia services. She has developed and clinically led numerous mental health services in the NHS that have won national awards for innovation and patient safety. Her portfolio of work includes developing memory assessment services in various London NHS Trusts, developing psychologically informed services for people with dementia residing in care homes, creating the first systemic community mental health service for families living with dementia, working with and training GPs in primary care and providing mental health consultation to IAPT services, Psychiatric Liaison services, physical health wards, palliative care homes and social services. Ally works eclectically using CBT, Psychodynamic and Systemic models and has specialist skills in working systemically. She is currently working in West London NHS Trust leading the implementation of trauma informed care in acute inpatient settings and delivering staff support for ward and home treatment teams. Her research interests include the systemic impact of mental health difficulties on families, the wellbeing of frontline staff and the implementation and impact of trauma informed care in inpatient settings. Ally is an experienced clinical supervisor for DClinPsy and MSc students and has the privilege of training and supervising many psychologists working in the NHS today.

Dr Angela Husband - Senior Clinical Tutor

Angela is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist with clinical experience in Adult Mental Health ranging from Acute to Crisis and Community NHS settings. Her interests are in improving services for people with Complex Emotional Need, often associated with a diagnosis of personality disorder. She is also experienced in working with people with unusual beliefs and experiences, often termed as psychosis. Clinically she is an integrative practitioner, using approaches such as Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT), and sees the value of CAT as an aid to case management and understanding dynamics in teams and systems. In her NHS role, she is Deputy Lead of Secondary Care Psychological Services and Lead for Crisis and Perinatal Psychology for East London Foundation Trust (ELFT) in Newham. In this role she has been developing the service provision for people with Complex Emotional Need (CEN) as part of the Community Mental Health Transformation. This has involved establishing innovative ways of working with underserved groups that have found it difficult to access mental health services. She has seen the value of the Clinical Associate Psychologist (CAP) role in expanding the reach of psychological approaches by setting up a community based psychology service that is primarily staffed by CAPs. She is interested in further developing the CAP role and identity in NHS settings.

Dr Kiana Azmoodeh - Senior Clinical Tutor

Kiana is a Clinical Psychologist who has worked across the NHS, local authority and charity sector, with people experiencing a range of difficulties. She currently works as a Specialist Clinical Psychologist in community forensic services, offering trauma-informed psychological support to individuals leaving custody with complex relational and mental health needs, as well as training and consultation to probation and police teams. Kiana holds specific interests in both the role of attachment and systemic factors in understanding distress and interpersonal relationships, with an important consideration of the wider context in which they occur. She completed her clinical training at UCL, investigating mindfulness, spiritual experiences and psychedelic substances, for her doctoral thesis. Broadly, her clinical work is informed by CBT, Systemic, and Psychodynamic principles, with further specialist training in EMDR. Drawing from her own cultural heritage, she is particularly interested in the integration of 'Eastern' philosophies and ideas with mainstream psychotherapeutic approaches, such as ‘third-wave’ models rooted in acceptance, mindfulness and compassion. She is passionate about destigmatising mental and physical health difficulties, with an interest in inviting a non-pathologising view of psychological wellbeing, rooted in context and compassion.

Dr Maria Mateen - Senior Clinical Tutor

Maria is a Clinical Psychologist with experience of working with people with a variety of mental and physical health difficulties in a number of NHS and charity settings. She has a particular interest in working with clients experiencing post-traumatic stress as well as those with life-limiting and/or terminal diagnoses, using cognitive behavioural approaches and narratively informed approaches to help clients understand the meaning they are making of events they experienced and of their lives. Most recently, as well as working on the CAP program, Maria is working as a Specialist Clinical Psychologist at the Traumatic Stress Service in South West London & St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust. During clinical training at UCL, Maria worked on the Valued Voices mentoring scheme and helped set up a reflective practice space for Apprentices to explore the place of the social GRACES in their work. Maria also cofounded the Collective of Asian Psychological Therapists, a space for networking, peer support and professional development that has grown to over 200 members in its first year. She has a special interest in promoting the understanding of the role of culture and other identities in clients' and clinicians’ experiences of therapy.

Dr Dorota Jagielska - Senior Clinical Tutor

Dorota is an Associate Lecturer at UCL, a Chartered Clinical Psychologist and a Psychodynamic Psychotherapist. She completed her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at UCL and qualified in Inter-cultural Psychodynamic Psychotherapy at the Tavistock & Portman Trust. In her NHS role, Dorota leads the Psychology Service within Mental Health Liaison Service at Guy’s and St Thomas NHS Trust. In her previous roles, she worked with adults within IAPT, primary and secondary care psychotherapy services and various clinical health psychology settings, including sexual health and HIV, chronic pain and medically unexplained symptoms. Dorota is an integrative practitioner using CBT, IPT and CAT in her work, but is strongly influenced by psychodynamic and attachment theories and is keen on keeping these alive in the NHS context. She is an experienced supervisor of qualified professionals and psychologists in training, and provides placements for psychiatrists to teach them to deliver therapy. She has published on using Cognitive Analytic Therapy in work with high-risk sexual behaviours and contributed to an introductory book on psychodynamic psychotherapy.