Professor Christina Liossi

Professor Christina Liossi is a paediatric psychologist and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton. She is also an Honorary Consultant Paediatric Psychologist, at the Paediatric Chronic Pain Clinic, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, London. Christina has worked as an academic and clinician in the UK and abroad and has cared for children with various chronic medical conditions including cancer, cystic fibrosis, chronic kidney disease, epidermolysis bullosa, and sickle cell disease.

Christina is one of the world experts in paediatric pain. Her research and clinical practice dovetail and focus on three intertwined themes:

• The cognitive and affective neuroscience of pain- in particular, the emotional modulation of attention in chronic pain.
• The development of theory driven psychological interventions for the management of acute and chronic pain in young people-currently cognitive bias modification training.
• The evaluation of the efficacy and effectiveness of psychological interventions in young people’s pain management-specifically cognitive-behavioural interventions, delivery of psychological treatment via the Internet, parent/family factors.

Christina’s randomized controlled clinical trials have been critical to the establishment of hypnosis as an evidenced-based intervention in the care of children with cancer. Christina has contributed to national and international evidence-based guidelines on acute and chronic paediatric pain, pain in epidermolysis bullosa and sedation in children. She is currently member of the Pain and Palliative Care Clinical Studies Group for Medicines for Children Research Network (MCRN).

Christina has written a book on procedure-related cancer pain in children, and is a content author on the e-PAIN project http://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/pain-management/.

Christina serves as a research mentor to numerous doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows and junior staff. Please contact her for questions pertaining to current training opportunities. She would particularly welcome applications from prospective PhD students who wish to explore different aspects of paediatric pain.