Dr Iain Williamson

Dr Iain Williamson is a critical health psychologist who is registered  with the Health Professions Council and chartered with the British Psychological Society. Dr Williamson uses qualitative methods in his research and has a particular interest in issues around diversity and health inequalities in marginalised communities.

View a full listing of Dr Williamson's publications and outputs.

• Critical/qualitative health psychology
• Breastfeeding and infant nutrition
• Chronic Illness
• Social and cultural diversity
• Lesbian and gay health and well-being
• Eating disorders 

Dr Williamson has methodolgical expertise in interpretative phenomenological analysis, interviewing and audio-diaries and Q-methodology.

• Health psychology
• Qualitative research methods
• Health inequalities
• Social and cultural perspectives on health and well-being.

• BA (Lancaster)
• Postgraduate Diploma (Open)
• PGCE (Leicester)
• MSc (Manchester)
• PhD (Huddersfield)

• MSc Health Psychology
• MSc Psychological Well-Being
• BSc Psychology with Health Studies
• BSc Psychology 

• Expert member of the NHS Leicester Research Ethics Committee since May 2008.
• Member of the Division of Health Psychology Training Committee since September 2012.

• Chartered with the British Psychological Society and Member of the Society's Division of Health Psychology and Qualitative Methods Section.
• Member of the International Society for Critical Health Psychology and the Midlands Health Psychology Network.
• Member of the Islamic Studies Network.

Registered as a practitioner psychologist (speciality: health) with the Health Professions Council in July 2009 until June 2013.

Williamson, I. & Sacranie, S. M. (2008, September).  Nourishment for body and soul: Exploring British Muslim mothers' accounts of breastfeeding (oral presentation).  British Psychological Society Qualitative Methods Section Inaugural Conference, Leeds, UK.

Williamson, I., Lyttle, S., Johnson, S. & Leeming, D. (2008, September). The benefits and drawbacks of using audio-diaries to capture lived experience: Participants' and researchers' views (Poster presentation). British Psychological Society Qualitative Methods Section Inaugural Conference, Leeds, UK.

Williamson, I. (2009, June).  Exploring accounts of breastfeeding experience among British Asian and white women. Association of Breastfeeding Mothers Annual Conference (Invited address) Leicester, UK.

Leeming, D., Williamson, I., Johnson, S. & Lyttle, S. (2009, September). ‘This is a natural thing, why can I not do this?’ :  The impact of early breastfeeding difficulties on first-time mothers.(Poster presentation). Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology Annual Conference, Newcastle, UK.

Johnson, S., Leeming, D., Lyttle,S.  &  Williamson, I. (2010, March).   Empowerment or regulation?  Exploring the implications of women’s perspectives on pumping and expressing milk. Breastfeeding and Feminism Symposium 2010: Informing Public Health Approaches Greensborough, North Carolina, US.

Johnson, S., Leeming, D., Lyttle, S. & Williamson, I. (2011, April). Being a good mother: Expressing breast milk as a way of negotiating the moral imperative that breast is best (oral presentation). Paper presented at the 7th Biennial Conference of the International Society of Critical Health Psychology, Adelaide, Australia, April.

Leeming, D., Williamson, I., Johnson, S. & Lyttle, S. (2011, June).  Becoming a breastfeeding mother :  An interactionist perspective (oral presentation).  Nutrition and Nurture in Infancy and Childhood: Bio-Cultural Perspectives. Grange-Over-Sands, UK.

Williamson, I., Song, J. & Lyttle, S. (2011, June). Developing undergraduate students’ skills in qualitative data analysis through the exploration of on-line Hajj diaries (oral presentation). Higher Education Academy Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics Teaching Islam in the Social Sciences. Birmingham, UK.

Williamson, I., Quincey, K., Hodges, K., Mitchell, H., Fox, G., Ogbonna, M. & Wood, N. (2011, September). Exploring the experiences of informal primary carers for individuals with Parkinson's Disease in the UK [poster presentation].  British Psychological Society Division of Health Psychology Annual Conference, Southampton UK.

Fox, G. & Williamson, I. (2012, February). Living with an eating disorder: An exploration of the effects on a co-habiting relationship from both partners’ perspectives (oral presentation). Midlands Health Psychology Network Annual Conference, Coventry UK

Fox, G. & Williamson, I. (2012, August). “Always the two of us and then Anorexia”. Co-habiting couples’ accounts of living with eating disturbance (poster presentation). European Health Psychology Society Annual Conference, Prague, Czech Republic.

Williamson, I., Ogbonna, M. & Mitchell, H. (2012, August). “It was never an option not to breastfeed.” Exploring breastfeeding accounts of middle class Nigerian women (poster presentation). European Health Psychology Society Annual Conference, Prague, Czech Republic.

Dr Williamson is currently working with Dr Scott Yates (De Montfort University) and, Dr Rachel Westacott and Professor John Feehally (University Hospitals Leicester) on a mixed methods project looking at self-efficacy and self-management of young people with Chronic Kidney Disease, funded by NHS Kidney Care.

Dr Williamson is supervising a PhD student on a project relating to lesbian and gay sexual health and well-being with Dr Julie Fish.

2012 NHS Kidney Care with Dr Rachel Westacott and Professor John Feehally (UHL) and Dr Scott Yates (DMU)

Dr Williamson has reviewed for several funding organisations including the Economic and Social Research Council, British Academy and National Institute of Health Research.

Dr Williamson has reviewed for publishing houses such as Sage and Open University Press. He has reviewed articles for numerous journals including International Journal of Men’s Health, Sex Roles, International Journal of Social Research Methodologies, European Eating Disorders Review and Critical Public Health.