Kerry Gibson

Phone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 88556
Email: kl.gibson@auckland.ac.nz
Room: 721.303, Tāmaki Campus

Kerry worked for a number of years at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town before coming to New Zealand in 2004. Since then she has worked at AUT’s School of Psychology at AUT and then as the Director of the Centre for Psychology at Massey University. She joined the Psychology Department at the University of Auckland in 2010. Kerry is a clinical psychologist and her research interests are in the areas of child and family psychology, trauma and psychotherapy. She works mainly with qualitative research methodologies. Kerry is an executive member of the New Zealand Psychological Society and holds the portfolio of Director of Professional Development and Training. Kerry is also a member of the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Social Science Advisory Panel.

The mirror project: This project focuses on clients’ experiences of psychotherapy and other mental health services. It is intended to ‘hold up a mirror’ to psychologists so that they can better understand how their practices are viewed by their clients.

Other on-going research projects include:

• Responses to trauma in human service workers
• Long term effects of childhood trauma and abuse
• Immigration and its effects on families
   

• Gibson, K., Morgan, M., Woolley, C. & Powis, T. (2009). A different kind of family: Retrospective accounts of growing up at Centrepoint and implications for adulthood.  Report prepared for the New Zealand Community Growth Trust. Auckland: Massey University.
• Gibson, K. & Swartz, L. (2008). Putting the heart back into community psychology: Some South African examples.  Psychodynamic Practice, 14 (1), 59-75.
• Gibson, K. (2008). Working with trauma:  The problem of trust in human service organizations (pp. 20 -26). Proceedings of the 8th Annual Conference of the Australian Psychological Society’s PORIG, November, Melbourne.
• Gibson, K., Swartz, L. & Sandenbergh, R. (2002) Counselling and coping.  Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
• Gibson, K. & Swartz, L. (2004). Community psychology: Emotional processes in political subjects.  In D. Hook, P. Kiguwa, N. Mkhize & A. Collins (Eds.). I. Parker & E. Burman (Cons. Eds.).  Introduction to critical psychology (pp. 465-486).  Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press.