Dr Emma Travers-Hill

Dr Emma Travers-Hill is a Lecturer in Psychology with a Clinical Focus alongside being a qualified Clinical Psychologist. Dr Travers-Hill is also the Programme Director of the Clinical Associate in Psychology (CAP) Apprenticeship MSc starting in February 2022.

Dr Travers-Hill completed her BSc in Applied Psychology at the University of Kent. She then undertook her PhD at the University of Cambridge based at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. Following these qualifications, Emma embarked on clinical training by studying for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of East Anglia. Once qualified as a Clinical Psychologist, she worked for the NHS in secondary care mental health services in Cambridgeshire and Kent. 

Dr Travers-Hill joined the University of Kent in 2021 with the aim of providing clinically-focused teaching and supervising Clinical Psychology research projects. To compliment these academic responsibilities, Emma holds an honorary contract with the NHS involving clinical and service consultation work. 

Career queries:

If you are considering a career in the area of Clinical Psychology, please click here to access my 'Clinical careers'  shared folder on OneDrive. If you have any further questions then feel free to make contact. 

Clinical Associate in Psychology (CAP) apprenticeship queries:
For all CAP queries please contact the CAP programme team through the CAPS@Kent.ac.uk email address. This will ensure that your query is responded to as promptly as possible.  

Dr Travers-Hill's research interests lie within the relationship between cognitions and emotions, and how this informs the development of new psychological treatments for clinical disorders. Over the years, her research has included a range of studies investigating information processing, attention and memory across emotional states, and clinical disorders. 

Emma's current area of expertise is within brief psychological interventions (BPIs) of which there are two project areas:

The development of ‘Perspective Broadening Training’ as a transdiagnostic BPI

This mechanism-focused intervention uses the philosophy of cognitive bias modification to target specific cognitive difficulties in perspective-taking (decentering and perspective broadening) in clinical disorders.

This has been trialled within Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. Additional studies are underway to further explore the relationship between these cognitive difficulties and clinical symptomatology.

[Key publication: Travers-Hill, Dunn, Hoppitt, Hitchcock and Dalgleish, 2017]

The design and pilot of BPIs within NHS secondary care adult mental health services

Combining evidence-based active components of interventions into BPIs which are designed to be delivered by mental health workers and supervised by psychologists. This involved:

1. contributing to an existing model in Cambridge services called ‘BPI’
2. developing a bespoke model which has now been implemented in Kent called ‘Initial Interventions’.

In addition to these areas, Dr Travers-Hill is passionate about giving people a voice to have conducted and published service-user involvement research and service evaluations in this area.

Convenor

• SP583: Clinical Research Project
• SP589: Reflective Diary

Lecturer

• SP641: Mental Health: Diagnosis, Interventions and Treatments
• SP314: Introduction to Clinical Psychology

Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) 

Conference Presentations

• World Congress of Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies 2019 multiple posters.
• Transdiagnostic Approaches to Mental Health Challenges Conference 2018 presentation.
• University of Bournemouth invited speaker for the Psychology department seminar series 2017.
• BPS press release and Cambridge Evening News on service user involvement in CAMHS in 2017.
• DCP Annual Conference 2017 symposiums on service user involvement in CAMHS and the DCP.
• Cambridge Evening News article on designing an OCD group in a clozapine clinic in 2016.
• UEA Trainee research conference 2015 & 16 poster and presentation.
• EABCT Annual Conference 2013 symposium.
• Cambridge Science week 2013 public lecture on PhD research.
• BABCP Annual Conference 2011,12,13,16 &18 posters and symposiums.
• Bright Club Cambridge 2011 public talk combining science research and comedy.
• The 23rd Cambridge Neuroscience Seminar 2010 poster.