Dr. Marjorie Collins

Senior Lecturer

RESEARCH:
Marjorie Collins’ research broadly encompasses the areas of cognitive neuropsychology, and applications of neuropsychology and cognitive processes to understanding psychological functioning, and the relationship between neuropsychological functioning and psychotherapeutic treatment outcomes. She is also interested in researching efficacy of therapeutic interventions in psychological practice.

ACTIVITIES:
Marjorie’s activities stem from her background expertise in cognitive neuropsychology combined with her training and expertise as a Clinical Psychologist. She conducts research within the domain of cognitive neuropsychology (including linguistic and emotional processing in the cerebral hemispheres; implicit and explicit memory) as well as the applications of neuropsychology to psychotherapy and psychological disorders. She has a particular interest in applying an understanding of brain mechanisms to psychotherapeutic interventions, and provides professional development in this area. She also runs her own private clinical psychology practice, where she sees adults with a range of psychological problems (including depression, anxiety, trauma) and is involved in drug research and treatment.
More specifically, Marjorie is a director and founder of the East Perth Neuropsychology Clinic (EPNC), along with Dr. Kyle Dyer (UWA Pharmacology) and Dr. Allison Fox (UWA School of Psychology). The Clinic aims to maximize treatment efficacy for drug dependence by providing neuropsychological assessments for people entering treatment for drug dependence, and using these assessment as a basis for developing individualized treatment plans consonant with each person’s cognitive profile. The Clinic is the first of its kind in Australia. The East Perth Neuropsychology Clinic won the National Drug and Alcohol Award for Treatment Excellence in 2006, which attests to the value and recognition of its contribution to drug treatment. As the basis for selecting the East Perth Neuropsychology Clinic for this honour, the judges of the award noted the unique combination of collaboration between university and government service providers, postgraduate tertiary education, workforce development and research within a unique clinical service. Marjorie supervises both clinical psychology and postgraduate research students in the Clinic. Along with her colleagues at the Clinic, she is currently undertaking research on developing and validating treatment for drug dependence, with a focus on methamphetamine users.
Marjorie is also conducting research into the conscious and non-conscious processes associated with emotion. This includes investigation of various psychological states, including anxiety, depression and alexithymia (emotional blindness). Her work on alexithymia encompasses research into developmental alexithymia and disruption of emotional processes after traumatic brain injury. The latter research is being conducted in conjunction with staff at the State Head Injury Unit and one of her Ph.D. students, Heather Conroy, and aims to elucidate emotional processing after brain injury, the neuropsychological mechanisms involved, and development of rehabilitation strategies.

TEACHING:
Undergraduate Teaching:
Psychology- Principles and Processes of Interventions; Biological Psychology, Sensory abilities and disabilities .

Postgraduate Clinical Teaching (i.e. Master’s and D.Psych. in Clinical Psychology):
Case Conceptualization and Assessment (Counselling Psychology Program); Clinical Practicum Supervision (Master’s and D.Psych. in Clinical Psychology Program).

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

• Collins, M.A. & Cooke, A. (2005). A Transfer Appropriate Processing Approach to Investigating Implicit Memory for Emotional Words in the Cerebral Hemispheres. Neuropsychologia, 43(10), 1529-1545.
  View Stimulus list here
  
  
• Collins, M.A. (2002). Interhemispheric communication via direct connections for alternative meanings of ambiguous words. Brain and Language, 80, 77-96.
  
  
• Collins, M.A. (1999). Differences in semantic category priming in the left and right cerebral hemispheres under automatic and controlled processing conditions. Neuropsychologia, 37, 1071-1085.

  Full List of Publications