Kate S. Thompson

Kate S Thompson is a counselling psychologist long fascinated by the interaction between the world of work and the personal identity of workers, particularly in crisis situations. She has more than 25 years experience of supporting people on the move and started her career as a humanitarian aid worker with Médécins sans Frontières and the International Committee of the Red Cross in the 1990s, in Ivory Coast and Liberia, Tanzania and Rwanda, before completing counselling psychology training in the UK. In a very varied career, she has worked with refugees and asylum seekers in the UK National Health Service, with humanitarians and mission sector workers (leading the psychosocial team at the organisation InterHealth Worldwide), with overseas consultants and expatriates, as well as with serving military personnel and veterans. All her work reflects an interest in the impact of transition on identity, the social meaning of war, and the use of community as a tool for healing.

Her first book as editor, Psychological Support for Workers on the Move, Improving Global Staff Care, she combines chapters from a number of psychological practitioners with proven expertise in the field of staff care. In their diverse chapters, they reflect on the support they have provided to a range of international staff members including humanitarians, overseas consultants, seafarers, volunteer activists in refugee camps, expatriates, mission sector workers, while also considering accompanying families. Chapters also explore the complexities of working with employing organisations, managing remote psychological support and building in best practice for duty of care and safeguarding to international working. Some key concepts from psychological research and practice further ground the writing in best practice, considering the role of 'worker-organisational fit', the concept of resilience at work, the role of attachment style and the relationship between burn out, post-traumatic stress disorder and moral injury.