Biography

I came to Keele in September 2012 with the single goal of completing the one year MSc in Counselling Psychology, in order to qualify as a counsellor, and got bitten by the research bug.  I am now full-time PhD candidate in the School of Psychology, having completed my first year over 2 calendar years as a part-time student.  I qualified as a counsellor in 2014, and combine my full-time studies with a small private practice and some voluntary counselling for a local bereavement and loss charity.  Previous work for a national pregnancy, childbirth and parenting charity has given me a long-standing interest in child development, with a special emphasis on the emotional lives of children and parents.  My PhD research is an autoethnography of childhood emotional neglect, which incorporates elements of my own story as well as the stories of my participants.

Conferences and Presentations

  • Blanchard, A. (July, 2015). The careful stone-turner: Ethical tensions in an auto-ethnography. Paper presented at The 2nd Sheffield Hallam University Psychology, Sociology & Politics (PSP) PhD and Early Researchers Conference, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield.
  • Blanchard, A. (October, 2015). “Invisible me.” Poster presented at the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) North West Consortium Postgraduate Conference, Keele University.
  • Blanchard, A. (November, 2015). Walking a tightrope: Ethical tensions and power struggles in an autoethnographic PhD. Paper presented at the Enquire Conference: Issues of Power in Social Research, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University Of Nottingham.
  • Blanchard, A. (April, 2016). Handing down emotional neglect: “Her mother was the same with her”. Poster presented at the Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences (ILAS) Postgraduate Researcher Conference, Outside the Frame: Thinking and Engaging Differently, Keele University.
  • Blanchard, A. (June, 2016). Handing down emotional neglect: “…she said that her Mum was the same with her”. Paper presented at the 5th international conference of the Centre for Research into Families and Relationships (CRFR): Unequal Families and Relationships, CRFR, University of Edinburgh.
  • Blanchard, A. (May, 2017). “See through the crack in my world”: Using autoethnography to bridge research, practice and personal development. Paper presented at the 23rd annual British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) Research Conference: Research and reflective practice for the counselling professions, Chester.
  • Blanchard, A. (June, 2017). Caught in barbed wire: Metaphors in counselling practice, supervision and reflexive research. Paper presented in Patients and Practitioners; Metaphors, Symbolism and Fictional vs Personal Narrative, at the Association for Medical Humanities Annual Conference: Critical Stories, Keele University.
  • Blanchard, A. (2018, January). The drama of becoming an autoethnographer. Paper presented at the 4th Annual Qualitative Research Symposium: How Do We Belong? Researcher Positionality Within Qualitative Inquiry, University of Bath.
  • Blanchard, A. (April, 2018). Through fog: An autoethnography of childhood emotional neglect. Three minute thesis (heat winner) presented at ILAS Postgraduate Researcher Conference: Turning Heads, Changing Minds, Keele University.

School of Psychology
Dorothy Hodgkin Building
Keele University
Staffordshire
ST5 5BG

Psychology School office
Tel: +44(0)1782 731831
Fax: +44(0)1782 733387
Email: psychology@keele.ac.uk

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