Dr Charlotte O'Brien is an HCPC registered Counselling Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and Training and Education Lead for the British Psychological Society's Division of Counselling Psychology. Charlotte is also Programme Director for the Doctorate in Counselling Psychology course within the School of Environment, Education and Development in the faculty of Humanities. Alongside this role, Charlotte works as a Chartered Counselling Psychologist in private practice and has experience of working in the NHS and Young Offenders Institution. Charlotte is a keen author and researcher and is currently co-editing a training handbook in Counselling Psychology and Psychotherapy, and is lead author for a core textbooK in Counselling Psychology. Charlotte has a background in senior management at Accenture where she worked for twelve years.

Charlotte's specialist area of interest in her research is embodied trauma. This includes topics such as working therapeutically with vulnerable groups including displaced individuals, refugees, asylum seekers and veterans, social justice, body mapping, creative methods and culturally-informed research and practice. Charlotte is currently researching the mental health needs and priorites of displaced individuals, and exploring new approaches to integrative practice in Counselling Psychology.

Charlotte is passionate about teaching the theory and skills required to become a competent, confident, and ethically sound Counselling Psychologist. As a practice and evidence-based practitioner herself, Charlotte enjoys helping trainees to develop hands on skills alongside their philosophical and theoretical underpinning. Charlotte currently teaches across the doctoral programme in Counselling Psychology and supervises doctoral theses.

Charlotte draws upon a pedagogy of discomfort and love (O'Brien & Charura, 2025) within a relational framework. Due to the challenging nature of our specialism in Counselling Psychology, it is important to enable trainees to go to places and spaces of discomfort, recognising the need for social justice, advocacy, and deep empathy for the clients we serve. Facilitating this learning in an environment of high support is also important, enabling trainees to feel safe, and to use a relational framework as the scaffolding within which to learn, develop, and grow into confident, reflective and reflexive Counselling Psychologists. 

Charlotte is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and is registered with the Health and Care Professions Council.

Charlotte is a registered Psychotherapist with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

Charlotte is also a member of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Charlotte is a RAPPS registered clinical supervisor with the British Psychological Society.

The British Psychological Society: Division of Counselling Psychology (DCoP) Committee Lead for Training and Education. Member 2024 (current).

The British Psychological Society: Training Committee in Counselling Psychology (TCCP). Member (2024-5).

The British Psychological Society: Crisis, Disaster & Trauma Committee Member (2021-2).

Charlotte is a member of the Education and Psychology (EP) research and scholarship group at the University of Manchester, focused on the application and critical interrogation of psychology to improve understanding of and inform provision relating to key processes, issues and inequities in educational contexts.