Staff profile: Dr Di Thomson
Position: Senior Lecturer
School: Rehabilitation Sciences
Telephone: +44 (0)20 8727 0377
Email: d.thomson@sgul.kingston.ac.uk
Biography
Di qualified as a physiotherapist from King's College London and worked for several years as a paediatric physiotherapist in various settings. She then trained as a physiotherapy lecturer and worked at Guy’s Hospital School of Physiotherapy, then the University of East London (UEL) as a senior lecturer.
Di's MSc in Behavioural Biology and Healthcare has allowed her to link her interest in health psychology with health practice and her MSc thesis was an evaluation of the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire counselling service (an associate of Westminster Pastoral Foundation).
After leaving UEL, Di moved to the Academic Department of Physiotherapy at King’s College London, where her interest in exploring the psycho-social aspect of physiotherapy practice continued. She was instrumental in designing and lecturing on the psycho-social pathway in the curriculum. She has been involved with postgraduate research in physiotherapy looking at practice focused issues at UEL, King’s College and recently at St George’s, University of London. Her PhD thesis (University of East Anglia) in 2005 was entitled ‘An ethnography of physiotherapy practice: a contextual exploration into the social construction of practice’. She is published widely, using a range of qualitative methodologies.
Di is also trained as a psychodynamic psychotherapist and has worked as such for the past 20 years, and is currently employed one day a week in a GP practice. After completing a course in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), she worked for three years as an honorary CBT therapist at Westminster Pastoral Foundation (WPF) in London, and is currently employed there as a CBT assessor.
Interests
Qualitative research methodologies; physiotherapy practice; reflection and reflexivity as a tool for change; health psychology; communication in healthcare; cognitive-behavioural therapy; psychology and exercise; self management strategies in behavioural change approaches.
Publications
Article
Thomson, Di (2011) Ethnography: a suitable approach for providing an inside perspective on the everyday lives of health professionals. International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation, 18(1), pp. 10-17. ISSN (print) 1741-1645
Thomson, Di (2010) The social meaning and function of humour in physiotherapy practice: an ethnography. Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 26(1), pp. 1-11. ISSN (print) 0959-3985
Ali, Nada and Thomson, Di (2009) A comparison of the knowledge of chronic pain and its management between final year physiotherapy and medical students. European Journal of Pain, 13(1), pp. 38-50. ISSN (print) 1090-3801
Thomson, Di, Steward, Barbara and Richardson, Barbara (2008) How a team of physiotherapists negotiated the impact of current healthcare policies on their practice: the CHAI visit. Advances in Physiotherapy, 10(1), pp. 21-30. ISSN (print) 1403-8196
Thomson, Di (2008) An ethnographic study of physiotherapists' perceptions of their interactions with patients on a chronic pain unit. Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 24(6), pp. 408-422. ISSN (print) 0959-3985
Thomson, Di and Hassenkamp, Anne-Marie (2008) The social meaning and function of food rituals in healthcare practice: an ethnography. Human Relations, 61(12), pp. 1775-1083. ISSN (print) 0018-7267
Salmon, Victoria and Thomson, Di (2007) Measurement of force production during concurrent performance of a memory task. Physiotherapy, 93(4), pp. 283-290. ISSN (print) 0031-9406
Housley, Georgie and Thomson, Diane (2007) A survey to explore the negative social evaluation of patients by physiotherapists. International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation, 14(4), pp. 174-186. ISSN (print) 1759-779X
Barcellona, Massimo and Thomson, Di (2002) Restoring psychological wellbeing of injured sportspeople. International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation, 9(11), pp. 426-430. ISSN (print) 1759-779X
Book Section
Hassenkamp, Anne-Marie, Thomson, Diane, Mavrommatis, Sophia and Walls, Kaye (2009) Case studies in orthopaedics. In: Guthrie, Lauren, (ed.) Clinical case studies in physiotherapy: a guide for students and graduates. Edinburgh, U.K. : Churchill Livingstone. pp. 165-214. ISBN 9780443069161
Grants
- £18,000 King's College London (Sep 2009-Aug 2011). To evaluate service user involvement in undergraduate physiotherapy curricula.
Students supervised
