I have spent much of my life exploring human personality—how people think and behave, what they conceal, and what they may not fully understand about themselves. That interest has taken me on a varied journey from psychiatric hospitals and research laboratories to investments banks and business schools, across the UK, New Zealand and Australia.

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I began my career as a psychiatric nurse in a large London psychiatric hospital before going on to study psychology and gaining postgraduate qualifications in organisational and clinical psychology from the universities of London and Sydney. I also completed a PhD in Personality Psychopathology at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience.
 

Some of my interests have taken me in less conventional directions. For example, I was personally trained at the University of California, San Francisco, by the late Professor Paul Ekman to recognise fleeting facial expressions that may reveal concealed emotions. I also completed a course in parapsychology through the University of Edinburgh’s Koestler Parapsychology Unit, covering topics such as: ESP, precognition and paranormal beliefs. Both experiences added to my interest in perception, deception, and the uncertain boundary between experience and belief.

My work has included psychological therapy, experimental research and management consultancy. I have also served as a business school professor, teaching organisational behaviour on MBA and leadership programs. Throughout, I have remained interested in the effect of personality on behaviour, emotional responses, and relationships—particularly when personal desire, fear or power enters the picture.​

 

My research and academic writing have largely focused on personality: how our individual characteristics shape what we do, how we relate to others and how well we perform—for better or worse. I have also explored the connection between creativity and schizotypy, a group of traits associated with unusual experiences, as illustrated in my widely cited paper, Schizotypy and Creativity in Visual Artists, which examined whether these traits might play a part in artistic originality.

 

After completing a Postgraduate Diploma in Creative Writing at the University of York, I turned to writing psychological fiction and drama. My writing draws on many years of observing people—how they rationalise, manipulate, endure or self-destruct. I am particularly interested in moral ambiguity, complex interpersonal dynamics, existential angst, and the unforeseen consequences of seemingly ordinary choices. For example, in my short play, Her Last Hurrah, recently produced by the Mudgee Performing Arts Society, a family retirement celebration gradually gives way to a darker emotional reality. The play explores the fragile gap between the face people present to others and what is really happening beneath it.

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After a lifetime studying human behaviour, I now explore it through characters of my own creation.