Jo Saunders

I joined the School in 2012 after spending 8 years at Swansea University as a Lecturer and, before then, as an ESRC Research Fellow at St. Andrews.

My research focuses on why we forget. Some of this research has been theory driven examining the underlying processes of why we forget some memories but not others. Research has also focused on the practical applications including the accuracy and completeness of eyewitness memory and memory in sub-clinical disorders.

I am also interested in the mechanisms of change underlying third-wave therapies, such as Mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and examining whether distress predicts the development, and maintenance, of psychological difficulties.

Theories of forgetting

Intentional and unintentional forgetting

Odour memory

Eyewitness memory

Psychogenic amnesia/fugue, trauma memory and dissociation

Recovered memories and repression

Amnesia in offenders

Psychopathology (depression, anxiety, OCD, psychosis and schizotypy, personality disorders, repressive coping)

Self-protective memory (i.e., mnemic neglect)

Third-wave therapies

Social psychiatry

C8105/C8106: Research Methods & Statistics

C8106: Introduction to Development

C8305: Development (Course Leader)

C8445: Practical Aspects of Memory (Course Leader)

I am also the Disability Contact for the School.

PhD in Psychology, University of St. Andrews

BSc (Hons) Psychology, University of St. Andrews