Meet The Team: Dr Michelle O’Shea

Hi, I’m Michelle!

I’m a Clinical Psychologist and a Director of Harris Psychology! I hope to use this space to share a little bit about me, my journey into psychology and my clinical interests.

My interest in psychology started when I was about 16. I grew up in a small town and there was a local family looking for volunteers to work with their son who had autism. It sounded interesting, so off I went and met the parents and to my surprise, they offered me the opportunity to work with their son. It was a huge learning opportunity for me and over the course of working with their child I became interested in his world, established a way to connect with him non-verbally, found a lot of joy in his achievements and discovered a deep sense of compassion and care for him. 

I went on to work with other local children and became more and more interested in behaviour and communication. This led me to consider a career in Speech and Language Therapy or Psychology…

My Psychology undergraduate degree had a high degree of cognitive psychology across the 4 years and I really enjoyed learning about models of cognition, particularly memory and language. After graduating, I got a job as an Assistant Psychologist in an inpatient brain injury rehabilitation unit. I can still remember how thrilled I was to be offered this job, and it did not disappoint. This was my first experience of neuropsychology and seeing the impact of brain injuries on cognitive abilities, such as memory, language, planning and organising. I had the opportunity to assist with some neuropsychological assessment and rehabilitation under the supervision of a qualified Clinical Psychologist.

This led to me getting a second Assistant Psychologist post in a Prison which again, was fascinating. I had a fairly broad remit within the prison which included supporting prisoners with brain injuries to engage in rehabilitation programmes as well as neuropsychological assessment.  

I got onto the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology in 2013 and was aligned to Older Adults services. This meant that a higher proportion of my placements were in Older Adult mental health services but I also completed placements with Adult, Learning Disabilities and Children and Adolescents. I remember feeling quite unsure what being aligned to older adult services would be like but I would recommend it to any trainee! I loved it so much that on completing my doctorate, I continued to work in Older Adult services for 6 years!! Within this time, my post was split between working in an Older Adult Community Mental Health Team and a Young Onset Dementia Service. I had a really keen interest in neuropsychological assessment and this made up a large component of my role. I spent a lot of my time meeting people who were concerned about their memory and completing detailed neuropsychological tests to assist the team with the diagnosis of conditions such as Dementia.

Alongside my love of neuropsychology, I also became really passionate about supporting people to live well with long-term or chronic health conditions. With ageing often comes changes in physical health and this can often be quite unwelcomed as it can change how people felt about themselves and their bodies but also impacted how easily they would engage in previously enjoyed hobbies. I really enjoyed using evidence-based psychological interventions to help people take stock of a new or existing diagnosis and consider how they could life alongside the condition.

After 6 years in Older Adult services, I had the opportunity to work in a Neuropsychology team. This was a very varied job which, of course combined my two interests of neuropsychology and working with people with physical health diagnoses, although this time, the age range varied greatly. I gained lots of experience working with a wide range of neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease, Motor Neurone Disease (MND), Multiple Sclerosis, Epilepsy, Subarachnoid Haemorrhage and Brain Tumours. I continued on my journey of support people to come to terms with life changing diagnosis and help them live a life that felt meaningful alongside their diagnosis.

In 2024, I left my NHS role to work more flexibly around my young family and as a result Harris Psychology really took off! I bring to Harris exactly what I brought to NHS – a strong sense of care and compassion and a desire to help people live lives that are meaningful and fulfilling, whatever that means to them. I continue to provide evidence-based psychological intervention to adults with a wide range of difficulties from depression and anxiety to adjusting to changes in their physical health. I also complete neuropsychological assessments alongside neurology and psychiatry colleagues.  

As well as a Clinical Psychologist, I’m also a mum, wife and all-round adventure lover! I love nothing more than on the water at Loch Lomond or running while listening to an audiobook. I love the feeling of awe that I experience in nature, and I love the feeling of being really, really small in a huge world and being outdoors really fulfils that for me.