Research interests:

My main field of research is Personality psychology. My research involves extending and clarifying current developments in personality psychology and critically assessing personality theories. I like to contribute to the theoretical frameworks that we use to develop accounts of personality through examining the underlying assumptions and drawing attention to critical issues relevant to all personality theories (e.g., the distinctions between description and explanations, and relations and the terms of relations). My research here also involves understanding what is meant by 'self' and 'identity', personality responses to serious health threats, the relation of personality to evolutionary psychology, personality and culture, neuroscience and personality, and the influence of attachment processes upon development. I also enjoy looking at the history of personality research (and of psychology generally).

My own approach to personality favours a psychodynamic perspective and my central interests here include defense mechanisms (especially repression) and unconscious mental processes. My published research covers the neuroscientific debate surrounding Freudian dream theory, defense mechanisms, and whether repression can be a conscious process. The theory of Freudian repression has been attacked variously in the scientific literature but I have endeavoured to demonstrate that many critics of Freudian repression actually have very little understanding of what Freud had to say on the matter.

I have been influenced by the Australian School of Andersonian realism, especially with respect to understanding the mind/brain controversy and demystifying unconscious processes. A lot of my research involves conceptual analysis which involves extending realist psychology to understanding phenomena such as subliminal perception, emotions, and the nature of explanation in a deterministic psychology.

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