Dr Vanessa Buckley

Vanessa is a clinical psychologist specialising in the area of adolescent mental health. Vanessa completed her DClinPsy at the IOPPN in 2013 and following this, worked in SLaM’s National and Specialist CAMHS at the Maudsley Hospital. Vanessa joined KCL in 2016, first working as a clinical tutor and subsequently as module lead on the PgDip in CBT for children and young people.

Vanessa was awarded a Maudsley BRC preparatory clinical research fellowship in 2017 and then a NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship in 2018 to investigate whether we can target anxiety as an early intervention strategy in young people who are at high risk of bipolar disorder.  

Project Title: Anxiety as a risk factor in bipolar offspring.  

Vanessa's project is characterising anxiety and its relationship to mood changes in young people who are at high risk of developing bipolar disorder. Vanessa will use this information to develop a new early intervention for bipolar disorder using psychological therapy to target anxiety. 

Research Interests

• Adolescent mental health 
• Bipolar Disorder 
• Anxiety 
• Psychological therapy 
• Early intervention