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King’s People

Biography

Myra Hunter is a clinical and a health psychologist who has worked as a clinician and researcher in the area of women’s health for over 35 years. She was awarded her PhD at KCL in 1988, her chair in clinical health psychology in 2006 and Emeritus status in 2015. She has also worked at UCL, UCLH and King’s Health Partner NHS Trusts, and was Professional Lead for Clinical Health Psychology across South London & Maudsley NHS Trust and associated acute trusts.  

Her research focuses on understanding the role of psychosocial factors and developing cognitive behavioural interventions for physical and emotional problems, in women’s health, oncology and cardiology. She has developed brief cognitive behavioural (CBT) interventions for the main menopausal symptoms, hot flushes and night sweats, with four clinical trials published in Menopause, Lancet Oncology and J Clinical Oncology demonstrating its effectiveness.  CBT is now considered one of the few acceptable and effective alternatives to hormone therapy for hot flushes and night sweats that is free from side effects. She has published eight books including a self-help book for women (Hunter & Smith 2013, who were ‘Routledge Authors of the Month’) and a training manual for health professionals (Hunter & Smith 2014). A large RCT has been commissioned to train UK breast cancer nurses to deliver the intervention, and with colleagues in the Netherlands she has developed a cCBT form of the intervention for breast cancer patients. The interventions are now offered at local clinics and a national training programme has been set up with support of the British Menopause Society. 

 

Research Interests

  • Women’s health - reproductive health across the lifespan. 
  • Developing and evaluating psychological intervention to help people to manage physical and psychological symptoms, in cardiology, oncology and women’s health.  
  • Menopause – developed a cognitive behavioural intervention for women to manage menopausal symptoms that has been trialled with over 1000 women and is recommended by the North American Menopause Society as one of the few effective non-hormonal treatments.