I am interested in the whole person. Throughout my career as a Clinical Psychologist, I have been fascinated by the ways our experiences, relationships, environments and biology come together to shape who we are and how we feel.

Some of my earliest clinical work was with babies and young children under five, alongside their parents and caregivers. At this stage of development, many of the thinking and language skills we rely upon as adults are only beginning to emerge. Feelings are not simply things that can be thought about or put into words: they are experienced and communicated through the whole child — through their bodies, behaviour, relationships and developing capacity to regulate emotion.

Working in early-years services gave me a particular appreciation of how profoundly our emotional development is intertwined with our physical and neurological development, and how this development takes place within relationships. It was perhaps here that my interest in the artificial distinction we often make between “mind” and “body” really began.

My later work with trauma and complex trauma strengthened this interest. Experiences that we might describe as “psychological” do not necessarily remain neatly within the realm of thoughts and emotions. Stress and adversity can be accompanied by changes across multiple physiological systems, while our physical state can, in turn, influence how we experience ourselves and the world around us.

For this reason, I am wary of language that talks about a “mind–body connection”, as though mind and body begin as separate entities which somehow need to be brought together. Our psychological lives are embodied. Our biological lives unfold within psychological, relational and social contexts. They are different ways of understanding aspects of the same person.

It was from this broader curiosity that my interest in the microbiome developed.

I went on to complete a Master’s degree in [exact degree title], graduating with Distinction. Studying microbiome science gave me the opportunity to approach questions I had encountered throughout my psychological career from a different scientific perspective. In particular, I became fascinated by the emerging research into the gut–brain axis and the complex, bidirectional communication occurring between microbial communities, the gastrointestinal system, immune and endocrine processes, the nervous system and the brain.

For me, microbiome science does not offer a new single explanation for mental or physical health. Quite the opposite. It adds another layer to an already extraordinarily complex picture of what it means to be human.

That complexity is what interests me.

I am particularly interested in what becomes possible when we bring knowledge from psychology, development and microbiome science into conversation with one another — carefully, critically and without overstating what emerging research can yet tell us.