Chris Cullen

Biography

I have a joint appointment between the University and North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, where I am the Clinical Director for Psychological Services.  I came to Staffordshire at the beginning of 1995, from Scotland, where I held the Chair in the Psychology of Learning Disabilities at the University of St Andrews.

I am a past President of the British Psychological Society (1997-1998), and a past President of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (2005-2006).

I chair the two Research and Development Consortia which co-ordinate NHS research in primary and secondary care in North Staffordshire, and I am the R&D Lead for Combined Healthcare.  I am a member of the Local Research Ethics Committee. 

Research and scholarship

My current research and clinical interests centre around two different areas.  I am a Trustee of Research Autism and I am the co-chair of its Scientific Advisory Committee.  This is a charity which has been set up to promote and fund research into interventions which will directly help people on the autistic spectrum and their families.  More information on this can be found be following the link above. I have carried out research in the field of learning disability on topics such as sexual abuse, deinstitutionalisation, staff training and challenging behaviour. 

My clinical work focuses on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, one of the ‘third wave’ cognitive therapies arising out of radical behaviourism.  The essence of ACT is captured in the serenity prayer, generally thought to have been written by Reinhold Niebuhr:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 
The courage to change the things I can, 
And the wisdom to know the difference.

There is more on ACT and other contextual therapies, such as Functional Analytic Psychotherapy, on the link above.