Our experts

Background

Katrina leads the National & Specialist CAMHS Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Service. She is also the Joint Crisis and Intensive Intervention Workstream Lead for the South London Partnership.

Katrina was involved in setting up the group component of the Maudsley Centre for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders (MCCAED) Intensive Treatment Programme (ITP) and continues to contribute towards the service.

Katrina supervises other clinicians working within National & Specialist CAMHS, and has conducted teaching and training locally, nationally and internationally on topics including DBT, mindfulness, eating disorders, the assessment and treatment of self-harm, and social approaches to psychology.

Katrina first worked as a clinical and research assistant with a drug and alcohol psychology service in Sydney, Australia before completing a psychology undergraduate degree (BSc) at the University of Sheffield.

She went on to complete a doctorate in clinical psychology (DClinPsych) at the University of East London. During her doctoral training, she completed a 12 month specialist placement at the Child and Family Department of the Tavistock Clinic which included the completion of a family therapy observation course and a live supervised systemic therapy course.

Katrina has completed training in multi-family therapy for eating disorders, Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Attachment Based Family Therapy (ABFT) and intensive training in DBT and RO DBT. She has particular interests and experience in working with Looked After Children and young people presenting with high risk behaviours. She has worked with adolescents and their families / carers within a range of inpatient and outpatient NHS services and within a Social Services Leaving Care team.

 

Research

Katrina’s research interests focus on evaluating the efficacy of DBT delivery with adolescents, as well crisis services and intensive interventions for young people. Katrina is also interested in the evaluation of the efficacy of CBT and Radically Open DBT (RO DBT) groups that are delivered within the ITP in MCCAED, as well as Multi Family Therapy for Bulimia Nervosa (MFT-BN) within the outpatient service of MCCAED.

 

Education and Training

• Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (University of East London)
• BSc Hons (University of Sheffield)

Publications

Stewart, C.S., Baudinet, J., Hall, R., Fiska, M., Pretorius, N., Voulgari, S., Hunt, K., Eisler, I. & Simic, M. (2019). Multi-family therapy for bulimia nervosa in adolescence: a pilot study in a community eating disorder service. Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment & Prevention, 14, 1-17.

Simic, M., Stewart, C.S., Eisler, I., Baudinet J., Hunt K., O’Brien J. & McDermott B. (2018). Intensive Treatment Program (ITP): A Case Series Service Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Day Patient Treatment for Adolescents With a Restrictive Eating Disorder. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 51(11), 1261-1269.

Hempel, R.J., Booth, R., Giblin, A., Hamilton, L., Hoch, A., Portner J. and Tomcik N., Rushbrook, S.C., Simic M., Hunt, K. & Wolf-Arehult, M. (2018). The Implementation of RO DBT in Clinical Practice. The Behavior Therapist 41(3), 161-173.

Simic M., Anderson L.K., Berner L., Peck S.K., Hunt K., Kaye W. & Eisler I. (2017). When family therapy isn't enough: New Treatment Directions for Highly Anxious and Dysregulated Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa. In Murray, S.B., Anderson, L.K. & Cohn, L. (Eds). Innovations in Family Therapy for Eating Disorders: Novel Treatment Developments, Patient Insights, and the Role of Carers,113-131. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group: NY.

Hunt, K., Simic, M. & Eisler, I. (2015). Treating Eating Disorders in Children and Adolescents. In L. Smolak and M. Levine (Eds.) The Wiley Handbook of Eating Disorders, 727-741. John Wiley & Sons: Chichester.

Stewart, C., Voulgari, S., Eisler, I., Hunt, K. & Simic, M. (2015). Multi-Family Therapy for Bulimia Nervosa in Adolescence. Eating Disorders, The Journal of Treatment and Prevention, 23 (4), 345-355.