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Miss Deepti Ramaswamy
Professional biography
I am an accredited psychotherapist with a special interest in trauma with experience of working in various settings within the NHS such as CAMHS, Primary Care, Eating Disorders, Prison and Veterans Complex Treatment Services. I have also worked overseas in the humanitarian sector as a mental health specialist in conflict areas such as Iraq, Syria and Myanmar.
I joined the Open University to pursue doctoral research in 2021 to explore questions related to trauma, identity and engagement with extremism.
Research interests
I am interested in exploring the following questions:
- How do experiences of trauma, marginalisation, victimisation and discrimination influence an individual's sense of identity and self-narrative?
- How does group identification support or weaken an individual's sense of identity and self-narrative?
- What is the role of an individual's sense of identity in the development of extremist states of mind and identification and engagement with extremist groups?
- What is the psychological process that allows for moral disengagement enabling a person to make the shift from being othered/dehumanised to treating others as 'other'/less than?
- How do moral injury and moral disengagement interact in the context of trauma and engagement with extremism?
- What can we learn from the experience of trauma therapy about the factors mentioned above?
