Susan Pawlby

Dr Susan Pawlby is a Developmental Clinical Psychologist and until December 2016 was a Lecturer in the Section of Perinatal Psychiatry at King’s College London (KCL), Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, and a member of the Multi-Disciplinary Team on the Channi Kumar Mother and Baby Unit at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. Dr. Pawlby now holds a Visiting Appointment at KCL. She trained as a child psychologist at the University of Nottingham and has over 30 years of experience working with mothers and babies both in clinical and research contexts.
She trained in observational methodology and has pioneered the use of video feedback techniques in supporting the developing relationship between mothers with severe mental illness and their infants. Dr Pawlby has undertaken several research studies, notably the South London Child Development Study (SLCDS) with colleagues, Professors Debbie Sharp and Dale Hay. Over a period of 25 years they have worked together on the SLCDS, a prospective, longitudinal community study begun in pregnancy, looking at the effects of the mother’s experience of childhood maltreatment, maternal depression in pregnancy and child maltreatment on the offspring into young adulthood.