Helen Pickford

Health and Wellbeing (2020 cohort)

The focus of my PhD is developing a post-injury psychological intervention and training psychological practitioners working in sport to use this to support athlete wellbeing and improve post-injury outcomes. The intervention will use an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) framework and practitioners will be asked how this intervention has influenced their practice, the responses of the multi-disciplinary team and crucially, the impact on the athletes they support.

I am a Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist and have a research background looking at the psychological consequences of injury for athletes with three peer-reviewed papers published to date. I completed my BSc in Psychology with the Open University before studying Sport and Exercise Psychology MSc at Brunel University London. During my professional training and since achieving my Chartership I have worked in several sports environments including academy football, academy and professional rugby, and extreme sports. I have spent a significant amount of my professional practice working as part of a multidisciplinary team to support injured athletes throughout their rehabilitation and now mentor trainee psychological practitioners working with this population.