دیدار با کارکنان ما

Dr Suzanne Lively

"I teach Psychology at Bellerbys Brighton on both the A Level and Foundation programmes.  It is an excellent subject to teach in an international college because there is so much scope to discuss cultural differences in human behaviour.

I am currently really enjoying teaching the new AQA(A) A Level syllabus, which was introduced in 2008.  We have been covering such topics as Eating Behaviour, looking at the rise in levels of obesity; Gender, how sex is biologically determined but the gender is subject to social and cultural influences and the psychology of addiction which considers the mechanisms that underlie addiction and looks at some specific addictions such as smoking and gambling.  The students are very interested in these new topics which are very up to date and spark some very interesting classroom debates. The Foundation syllabus will be updated to reflect changes in the A Level reading for teaching from September 2010.

My first degree was in Developmental Psychology from the University of Sussex which I thoroughly enjoyed but my appetite for clinical psychology was sparked by the project that I did in the third year of my degree.  This led directly into my undertaking a DPhil in Clinical Psychopathology and the precise area of my research was the misinterpretation of ambiguous bodily sensations in situational phobias, which I found absolutely fascinating.  I explored links between the cognitive biases that underlie Panic Disorder to determine whether these biases were also active in situational phobias.

Whilst I was undertaking the experimental part of my Doctoral studies I taught at the University of Sussex for three years on the first year undergraduate Introduction to Psychology course and second year Clinical Psychology courses.  At the same time I was a single mum with two young children so life was rather hectic! 

When I moved onto the writing up stage of my studies I came to work at Bellerbys (2002) and have been writing up ever since!  It was very challenging working full time and trying to find time to write my thesis after work, at weekends and through the holidays, but I eventually succeeded and I think this shows that if you have something you really want to achieve that you should never give up!  There were times when I thought it was impossible but I got there in the end.

Life is very different now that I don’t have my Doctorate waiting for me every night when I get home, but it is a nice feeling to have some time to myself after ten years of studying for my DPhil.  I have recently been made Head of Psychology at Brighton Bellerbys so I am very busy at work and am thoroughly enjoying my job and my free time at the weekends!"