Women's Health: Psychological insights from Trauma to Transition

A day of Psychology talks

Sarah Howcutt, Catherine Loveday, Julianne Boutaleb, Alisha Mehta, Nadia Lohawala

Join us for an exciting in-person day of psychology talks at The Wolfson Theatre, Cheng Kin Ku Building, London School of Eonomics and Political Science (LSE) located in the heart of Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, UK. This event is a great opportunity to delve into the fascinating world of psychology and to hear from leading experts in the field.

Everyone is welcome, whether you're a student, professional, or simply interested in the subject, this seminar promises to be an engaging and thought-provoking experience. Don't miss out on the chance to expand your knowledge and connect with like-minded individuals. Mark your calendars and get ready for an enlightening day of psychology!

Please note that we anticipate that this day would be of huge interest to anyone thinking about studying psychology and are delighted to welcome under-18 attendees so long as they are accompanied by an adult attendee.

All talks will be followed by an opportunity to ask questions.

Talk 1: Hidden voices: Why don't we understand women's health better?

In the UK, women's life expectancy is 3-4 years longer than men's. Yet women spend a greater proportion of their lives in poor health, and they are offered more treatments that are harmful or ineffective. Recent NHS and government reports highlight how investment in women's health could offer huge benefits to the economy and communities. But the truth is that we do not understand women's minds and bodies as well as we should.

In this session, we will consider why women's voices are hidden in healthcare services and policy. We will focus on the issue of why we do not have enough data on women's mental and physical health, and we will look at one approach to reach some of the most important (and difficult) women to understand - young women aged 16 to 24 years. Sarah will share her work that puts forward a theory about research recruitment that suggests that shopping may be one of the keys to unhiding women's voices in the fight to reduce the gender health gap in the UK.

Speaker

Sarah Howcutt is Principal Lecturer in Public Health at Oxford Brookes University. She is a former OU psychology student and tutor. At Oxford Brookes, Sarah is the Academic Director of a university partnership that seeks to widen participation in UK Higher Education. She also researches how we can collect better health data about marginalised communities by increasing participation in research and health monitoring activities such as cancer screening.

Talk 2: Shattered Dreams: When Reproductive Trauma impacts our Motherhood Journey

We all come to motherhood with a ‘reproductive story’ (Diamond & Jaffe, 2011). An unconscious narrative of how we are going to conceive, experience pregnancy and become mothers. A story that we often carry until we meet with reproductive events outside of our control. It is currently estimated that 1 in 6 individuals and couples of childbearing age will experience issues with infertility, and that 1 in 4 women will experience miscarriage and pregnancy loss. In the postpartum period almost 1 in 3 women report finding childbirth traumatic, and 1 in 5 will experience poor perinatal mental health.

Drawing on the concepts of matresence and reproductive identity (Athan, 2021; 2023) Julianne will encourage attendees to think about the ways in which unconscious ideas around motherhood and adverse reproductive events may reshape women’s attitudes towards mothering and their experiences of maternal identity. Introducing the idea of reproductive trauma, she will also explore how the relationship with their partner ( if partnered) and the parent-infant relationship may be impacted.

She will draw on key psychoanalytic concepts and ideas around mothering and attachment to elucidate common difficulties that women hoping to become mothers may face in the transition to motherhood.

Speaker

Julianne Boutaleb is the Clinical Director and Founder of the Parenthood In Mind practice. She is a passionate and highly experienced perinatal psychologist who has worked for over 24 years in the NHS and private practice with parents and parents-to-be and their babies (and bumps) who have needed support with a wide variety of issues including anxiety and depression during and after pregnancy, miscarriage and reproductive loss, attachment issues, re-emergence of childhood issues and couples issues. Julianne is a member of the Birth Trauma Association and specialises in working therapeutically with reproductive trauma, PTSD and tokophobia (fear of giving birth) as they impact the mother, couple relationship and parent-infant attachment. In addition, she is also affiliated with BICA (British Infertility Counselling Association) and offers tailored psychological interventions for individuals and couples (including same sex couples) who are pregnant or are parenting following ART (IVF, ICSI, donor conception, surrogacy) or adoption. She also specialises in offering psychological support to parents (either individually or together) who are co-parenting in the midst of separation and divorce. She has over 15 years’ experience teaching and training psychologists and health professionals on issues of parental mental health, attachment, early years and positive mental health for babies and young children.

Julianne works from a variety of perspectives including psychodynamic and attachment models, CBT, integrative, ACT and compassion-focussed work, couples work and can also offer parent-infant sessions using the Watch, Wait & Wonder model which focusses on how you can improve your attachment relationship with your baby.

Talk 3: Understanding Menopause: Psychological Impacts, Workplace Experience and Ethnic Disparities

Menopause marks a significant transition in reproductive capacity for women, typically occurring in midlife. This period is often accompanied by a range of physiological, cognitive, and psychological changes that can affect quality of life and functioning.

Alisha and Nadia, trainee clinical psychologists conducting research within the UCL Menopause Mind Lab, will provide an overview of the menopause transition and its mental health implications. The presentation will summarise current research findings, clinical approaches, and recommendations for treatment, policy and emerging areas of inquiry. They will present on two key strands of their doctoral research: menopause experiences in the workplace, and the differential impact of menopause across diverse ethnic groups.

Speakers

Alisha Mehta is a final-year clinical psychologist at University College London (UCL), due to qualify in September 2025. She recently completed her doctoral research with the UCL Menopause Mind Lab. Alisha is committed to tackling health inequalities and adopts a systemic, intersectional lens in both her clinical work and research. Her research focuses on the risk of mental health symptoms across menopause stages, and on experiences of menopause in the workplace.

Nadia Lohawala is a trainee clinical psychologist at UCL who is conducting her thesis on South Asian women’s experiences of menopause and access to healthcare services to better understand how to better support this community and how symptoms may differ across cultural groups in the UK.

Talk 4: Caring, Careers, and Cognitive Decline: A Psychologist’s Personal and Professional Journey

Navigating the dual responsibilities of career and caregiving is a growing reality, especially for women who frequently find themselves "sandwich carers", supporting children while also taking responsibility for ageing parents. As psychologists, we often have particularly high expectations of ourselves when it comes to our interactions with others, and nowhere does this feel more significant than in the home. For me, this became even more poignant, when my professional expertise in memory loss led me to recognise the early signs of dementia in my mum, herself a highly respected consultant psychiatrist. In this talk I will share this intersection between my professional and personal story, explaining how I applied my neuropsychological expertise to develop evidence-based strategies to support my mum, whilst continuing to sustain and develop the career that gave me those insights. I will conclude with observations about the multi-dimensional and gendered nature of dementia caregiving, and discuss the broader implications this has for women's health and workplace equity.

Speaker

Catherine Loveday is a Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Westminster. Her research and clinical practice focuses on the functions of memory and in particular, the way that memories are formed, accessed and lost.

Having worked closely with individuals experiencing memory loss, Catherine is committed to promoting better understanding of this lived experience, in particular the impact on social function and sense of self. She has a passion for public understanding of science and is regularly invited to give public lectures at festivals, community events and in schools.

Catherine is author of The Secret World of the Brain and frequently appears as an expert psychologist on BBC Radio 4's All In The Mind, as well as many other radio and television programmes.