Congratulations to Prof Glynis Murphy, winner of this year’s MB Shapiro Award. This is awarded by the British Psychological Society Division of Clinical Psychology in recognition of a clinical psychologist who has achieved eminence in the profession and has had significant impact on the knowledge/practice of British clinical psychology.
The award is given in honour of the late MB Shapiro who was one of the founders of clinical psychology in the UK. This is a major award and the first time in over twenty years that it has been awarded to someone working in the learning disability field.
Professor Murphy is very well known internationally and was President of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities from 2008-2012. She has been a clinical psychologist for over thirty-five years combining academic with clinical work and has, throughout this time, been a role model for other clinical psychologists. She has been involved in training future generations of clinical psychologists through previous posts in the Institute of Psychiatry and, more recently, as Academic Director of the Clinical Psychology Training Course at The Institute of Health Research at Lancaster University.
Professor Murphy began by working in an innovative service for children with learning disabilities at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, in the 1970s, where she did pioneering work on self-injurious behaviours, using applied behavioural analytic methods. She later worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital, with children with congenital conditions such as hypothyroidism and phenylketonuria, and then moved back to the Bethlem Royal Hospital to work with adults with learning disabilities detained in secure services. In recent years her work has focused on assessment and interventions with people with mild learning disabilities and/or autism who are in contact with the Criminal Justice System. With colleagues, she has developed an assessment for fire setting and a group CBT approach for the treatment of sex offenders in the community and in secure care, which she is now involved in extending to young people with learning disabilities.
Professor Murphy has an impressive publishing record, being the author of four books, in addition to having published over a hundred academic articles and book chapters. She is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities.
Fabulous achievement!
