Dr Kathy Smith
BEd Hons, MA (Theatre), PhD (Theatre), FRSA
PGDip (Integrative Psychotherapy), ADip (Integrative Psychotherapy), MBACP (Retired)

Kathy worked, for many years, in community theatre, in industry, and in off-site education (with young people at risk). In the late 1990s, she moved into Higher Education, becoming a lecturer at the Central School of Speech and Drama before taking up a Senior Lectureship in 2000 in Theatre Studies at London Metropolitan University. She became Course Leader for Theatre Studies in 2003, then worked within the English Literature team to develop a practice-based Theatre Studies strand within the BA English Literature pathway, before moving on to train as an Integrative  Psychotherapist.

In terms of Theatre Studies, Kathy's research interests are in contemporary theatre and performance practices, theories of identity, spectatorship and representation, the body-culture-representation relation (with particular reference to thresholds, liminal moments and cultural 'rupture'), and the theatres of Samuel Beckett and Rona Munro. Her main teaching areas have focused on modern and contemporary theatres, and the relationship between theory and practice; and she has a number of chapters and articles published in edited collections and refereed journals, including Performance Research, Critical Quarterly and STP.

Kathy has been involved with TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association), SCUDD (Standing Conference of University Drama Departments) and CDE (German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English); she is a member of Mensa, Equity (British Actors' Equity Association), BACP (British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy),  a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and is currently actively involved in various programmes of CPD, most recently with the Philadelphia Association and SSCP.

As a qualified integrative psychotherapist, Kathy's current research interests draw on clinical theory and practice coupled with a long-term academic and practice-based background in Theatre Studies, focusing on physical and visual languages, the body-in-space, the psychosemiotics of theatre and of therapy, and the complex relational webs generated by, and between, the two.