Dr. Meg Ryan

Dr. Meg Ryan is an Assistant Professor in Global Health, and Director of the MSc in Global Mental Health. Her research interests are broadly focused on reproductive justice, gender based-violence, global mental health, and LGBTQIA+ healthcare, with a particular focus on qualitative methodologies. Meg is TCD PI for a research partnership with International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the Moroccan Family Planning Association (AMPF). This project is funded by the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI), and explores the experience of reproductive violence among Moroccan women and refugee women accessing health care in Morocco. Meg is also PI for an IRC New Foundations funded project in collaboration with the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. This project seeks to develop stakeholder informed understandings of the intersections of reproductive coercion and intimate partner violence in an Irish context. Meg received a BA (Hons) in Psychology from TCD, where she also completed the Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology. Her doctoral research was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Frédérique Vallieres, and explored the experience of providing crisis pregnancy counselling in Ireland during a period of legislative changes regarding abortion provision. Meg is a practicing Chartered Counselling Psychologist and works from a feminist psychotherapy perspective incorporating both humanistic and psychodynamic principles. Meg is a founding member of the PSI Special Interest Group for Human Rights and Psychology and Chair of the Research Advisory Committee for Mental Health Reform. Meg is a member of the Trans* Research Association of Ireland.

  Child/Maternal Health   Clinical psychology   Counselling Psychology   Feminist Psychotherapy   Health attitudes and behaviour   Health Care Reform   Health outcomes   HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH   Health, Clinical and Counselling   Psychology of women and perspectives on personhood   Psychotherapy Research   Psychotraumatology   Public health   Qualitative Methodology   Reproductive Health   sexual health services   Sexuality and sexual health

My research interests include global mental health, LGBTQIA+ health and mental health, reproductive justice, and gender-based violence (GBV). My research focuses on applying consultative, participatory approaches for the development of end-user informed guidelines, frameworks, and resources that will improve access to health, including mental health, care for society's most vulnerable populations. Through my research, my aim is to represent diverse lived experiences across gendered and cultural divides to address issues of inequality and discrimination of marginalised groups, with the goal of empowering individuals and communities to create social change. I am committed to integrating social justice and human rights principles into my research, and I believe that engaged research practices which build collaborative relationships between researchers and communities can enable communities to address local concerns, resulting in research that is applicable, culturally relevant, and that bridges the gaps between research, practice, and community needs. In line with feminist approaches, my research strives to include a `reciprocally educative focus', underpinned by values of intersectionality, positionality, and reflexivity.