Dr Aliénor (Lili) Lemieux-Cumberlege

Career Development Fellow

  • Department of Clinical Psychology
  • NHS Lothian Psychosis & Complex Mental Health Psychology Service

Contact details

Address

Street

Doorway 6, Elsie Inglis Quad, Old Medical School, Teviot Place

City
Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9AG

Availability

  • My usual University days are Thursdays (09:00-19:30) and Fridays (9:00-17:30).
    Please note that I cannot respond to clinical inquiries from my University email address.

Biography

Background

I completed my undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montréal, Canada, in 2014. I volunteered and worked in a variety of peer support services throughout my undergraduate degree and spent six months six months working in a large homeless shelter in Montréal’s downtown, which sparked my interest in multiple exclusion homelessness.

In 2015, I moved to Edinburgh to pursue an MSc in Psychology of Mental Health (Conversion) at the University of Edinburgh. While completing my MSc, I worked in a frontline homelessness service in Edinburgh. I continued working in this service and later in a substance use recovery service before starting my clinical training on the Edinburgh DClinPsychol training course in 2018. I was based in NHS Lanarkshire for the duration of my training and completed a specialist placement with the Lanarkshire Addiction Psychology Service. My DClinPsychol thesis built on research done in my MSc and focussed on the mental health and wellbeing of frontline workers in homelessness services.

I qualified as a Clinical Psychologist in 2022 and have been working across two Community Mental Health Teams (CMHT) in Edinburgh since then. In April 2023, I reduced my clinical time in order to join the University as a Career Development Fellow.

Responsibilities & affiliations

Clinical Fellow, Pathway Faculty for Homeless & Inclusion Health

Registered Practitioner Psychologist, Health & Care Professions Council

Postgraduate teaching

In my University of Edinburgh role, I am aligned to the MSc Psychological Therapies and contribute clinical practice, supervision, and teaching to the Centre for Psychological Therapies. I also contribute to teaching on the University's DClinPsychol programme and the South of Scotland CBT Programme at Queen Margaret University.

Research summary

I have a strong interest in the mental health and coping of professionals who work with survivors of trauma, particularly frontline staff in homelessness settings. I am interested in how individuals and organisations can support staff wellbeing when the work environment frequently involves exposure to distressing workplace events.

My DClinPsychol thesis built on research done in my MSc and involved two strands of work: 1) a systematic review of the implementation of Psychologically Informed Environments with staff in homelessness services, and 2) an empirical study on organisational and individual factors that may predict PTSD, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout in frontline workers.

My current research focusses on interventions to support staff well-being and psychological thinking, including reflective practice and team formulation.

I am also interested in Compassion Focused Therapy approaches to working with multiple exclusion and complex trauma, the factors affecting ‘drug of choice’, minority experiences of cancer, and LGBTQIA+ mental health.

Knowledge exchange

I am committed to supporting the development of research and practice links between clinical/frontline services and academia. I have participated in a number of knowledge exchange events run through the Pathway Faculty for Homeless & Inclusion Health (and their associated Mental Health Network). I have also presented on my research in seminars organised by the SHiSS' Centre for Applied Developmental Psychology (CADP).

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