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      Dr Elizabeth Cotton

      PhD
      ROLE: Senior Lecturer in HRM
      SCHOOL: Business School
      DEPARTMENT: Management Leadership & Organisations
      TELEPHONE: +44 (0)20 8411 4578
      EMAIL: E.Cotton@mdx.ac.uk
      1. Biography &
        Qualifications
      2. Learning &
        Teaching Interests
      3. Research Outputs &
        Interests
      4. Funded Research &
        Knowledge Exchange Projects
      5. Engagement &
        Impact

      • Biography &
        Qualifications

        Dr Elizabeth Cotton is a writer and educator working in the field of mental health at work. She teaches and writes academically about employment relations and precarious work, business and management, adult education, solidarity and team working, and mental health at work. She is currently a senior lecturer at Middlesex University.She has developed curricula on resilience for the Vienna University of Economics & Business and is a regular guest lecturer at Birkbeck College and Cranfield School of Management.

        Elizabeth’s background is in workers education and international development. She has worked in over 35 countries on diverse issues such as HIV/AIDS, organising and building grassroots networks, negotiating and bargaining with employers and organisational development. She was Head of Education & Organizing for Industriall, one of the largest trade unions in the world with a membership of 50 million people, an experience reflected in her co-authored book Global Unions Global Business described as “the essential guide to international trade unionism”.

        In 2007 she returned to the UK to train in adult psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic and worked as an honorary psychotherapist in the NHS.

        Elizabeth is an active researcher publishing in 4* journals. She led the successful bid to secure the Editorial Team of Work, Employment & Society, an ABS4 journal looking at the sociology of work. From January 2018 she will be joint Editor-in-Chief of WES leading a team of 12 senior academics from Middlesex.

        Her current research involves a national survey of working conditions of mental health workers launched in November 2017 at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust. A summary of the research can be found at www.thefutureofwork.org.  Part of this dissemination will involve the creation of an online map of jobs and working conditions as well as academic publications and public engagement activities for frontline workers.

        Elizabeth set up Surviving Work in 2012 to provide online and face to face support and education for frontline workers and activists. This has involved blogging, social media and over 200 educational events and discussions about how to survive work. This has involved national and local level activities for Unison, NUT, TUC, UCU, Tavistock Clinic, British Psychoanalytic Council, Association of Child Psychotherapists, Manchester University, and the London School of Economics. The Surviving Work Library is made of hundreds of anonymous recordings of people’s experiences of surviving work as well as survival guides and eBooks. The Surviving Work blog uses popular language and humour to promote progressive models of mental health at work, psychoanalytic ideas and the politics of work. It has a readership of approximately 20,000 people.

        In 2016 Elizabeth created a joint online resource for frontline healthcare workers with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust www.survivingworkinhealth.org. The website is made up of videos, podcasts and eGuides on how to do it.

        In 2016-2017 Elizabeth edited and commissioned a column Surviving Work in the UK for the LSE's Business Review which looks critically at the changing nature of work, the growth of precarity and the impact on our states of mind. The eBook Surviving Work in the UK is available for free online.

        Elizabeth disseminates her academic research on social media - with regular blogging and articles published in professional and business publications. During 2015 she wrote a bi-monthly column for theconversation.com Battles on the NHS Frontline: Stories from the Vanguard of Health and Social Care, with a readership of 50,000 people.

        This has involved carrying out workshops and presentations on mental health at work extensively in the UK including London School of Economics, Birkbeck, UCL, Manchester Business School, Vienna University of Economics & Business, Tavistock Clinic, Tavistock Institute for Human Relations, ISPSO, OPUS, The Photographer’s Gallery, The Freud Museum. She is currently running a project with The Photographer's Gallery in London on the links between psychoanalysis and photography - Thinkers in Residence. To see the project's evolving online archive of recordings and material go here.

        She is a Senior Fellow of the HEA, a member of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, British Sociological Association, Association of Psychosocial Studies, Organisation for a Progressive Understanding of Society and the British Sociological Association.

        Phd through Publication, 2015

        MA Foundation in adult psychodynamic Psychotherapy, 2012, Tavistock Clinic/Essex University

        PG Cert Higher Education, 2010 Middlesex University

        MA, Philosophy, University College London, 1993 Melhuin Scholarship

        BA, Philosophy, University College London, 1989-1992


        Languages Spoken

        English, Spanish.

      • Learning &
        Teaching Interests

        Elizabeth has worked as an educator for twenty years, using adult education methods in workplace and developing country settings. Her background includes working with trade unions and workers' organisations in building local capacity to improve working conditions.

        Elizabeth's UG and PG teaching interests are interdisciplinary, looking at the link between employment relations and mental health. Her particular teaching interests include Comparative Employment Relations and Varieties of Capitalism, International Employment Relations, mental health at work.

        Elizabeth created and teaches the first MA module validated by the CIPD on Resilience at Work which includes teaching on decent work, inequalities and social justice to more technical areas such as therapeutic and workplace wellbeing techniques.

        Elizabeth is programme leader for a new MSc Work and Organisations that is an interdisciplinary programme looking at the realities of working life from a psychological,  psychodynamic, employment relations and critical perspective. The programme was commended by the CIPD for its innovation and timeliness.

        Elizabeth is joint Programme Leader with Janroj Keles and Nick Clark in developing a new Dprof Researching Work for labour activists and trade unions dut to start in October 2018.

      • Research Outputs &
        Interests

        Elizabeth writes academically and also for practitioners. She is highly active in disseminating her research through  social media and developing a wide range of digital publications and online archives. Her current book Surviving Work in Healthcare: Helpful stuff for people on the frontline (Gower, 2017) was nominated by Routledge for the CMI's management book of the year.

        Her current academic research relates to working conditions in mental health services. Based on her survey results www.thefutureoftherapy.org she is currently co-authoring four articles and one book chapter looking at trends in the sector including the link between IAPT and welfare reform, the growth of self-employment, the scale of unwaged work and the impact of performance data and management on mental health services.

        Academic Articles

        • 2*ABS. Cotton E (2017) Constructing Solidarities at Work: Relationality and the methods of emancipatory education. Capital & Class. DOI: 10.1177/0309816817723284.
        • 4*ABS. Cotton E (2015) Transnational Regulation of Temporary Agency Work: Compromised Partnership between Private Employment Agencies and Global Union Federations. Work, Employment and Society 29 1: 137-153.
        • 4*ABS. Cotton E & Royle T (2014) Transnational Organising: A case study of contract workers in the Colombian mining industries. British Journal of Industrial Relations 52 4: 705-724
        • 3*ABS. Cotton E & Gumbrell-McCormick (2012) Global Unions as imperfect multilateral organizations: An international relations perspective. Economic and Industrial Democracy 33 4:707-728.

         

         

         Books & Book Chapters

        • Cotton E (2017) Surviving Work in Healthcare: Helpful stuff for people on the frontline. Taylor & Francis. Nominated for the CMI’s management book of the year 2018.
        • Co-authoring a book Practical Management and Leadership for Doctors with John Wattis & Stephen Curran, Radcliffe Health publishers. Publication 2018.
        • Cotton E (2018) In the Union: The psychodynamics of solidarity in Morgan D (Ed) The Political Mind: Psychoanalysis and Politics. Routledge's International Library of Psychoanalysis.
        • Two chapters on international employment relations and wellbeing to be produced in Critical HRM edited by Roper, Prouska & Chatrakul. CIPD 2018.
        • Cotton E (2013) ‘Regulating precarious work: the hidden role of the Global Union Federations’ in Vulnerable Workers and Precarious Working published by Cambridge Scholars publishing, Series Editors: Tayo Fashoyin and Michele Tiraboschi, guest editors: Malcolm Sargeant and Martina Ori
        • Croucher R & Cotton E (2013) Case study: AngloAmerican and HIV/AIDS. In Gooderham & Nordhaug International Management: Theory and Practice. Oxford: Blackwell
        • Croucher R and Cotton E (2011) Global Unions Global Business: Global Union Federations and International Business. Second Edition. London: Libri Publishing
        • Cotton E (2010) ‘CSR and HRM’ in Roper, Prouska & Chatrakulna Ayudhya Critical Issues in Human Resource Management. London: CIPD

         

         

        Practitioner Publications

        All of my public engagement projects result in online archives and digital products for publication and open access dissemination.

        • Cotton E (2017) Online Archive: The Future of Therapy www.thefutureoftherapy.org & eBook. This online resource summarises the 2016 national survey I carried out of 1500 mental health workers. The website was funded by Middlesex University’s new Research Fund. ISBN 978-1-9998637-0-8
        • Cotton E (2017) Online Archive: Surviving Work Library www.survivingwork.org.
        • Cotton E (2017) (Ed) eBook. Surviving Work in the UK. LSE Business Review. ISBN 978-1-9998637-1-5
        • Cotton E (2016) Online Archive: Surviving Work in Healthcare www.survivingworkinhealth.org & eBook. ISBN 978-1-9998637-4-6
        • Cotton E (2016) eBook Battles on the NHS Frontline. The Conversation. ISBN 978-1-9998637-3-9
        • Cotton E & Whitehead O (2016) Online Archive: Thinkers in Residence: A Body of Work & eBook.
        • Cotton E (2016) (Ed) eBook. Love: A Guide for Amateurs. ISBN 978-1-9998637-2-2
        • Altman, Kline, Cotton, Morton & Altman (2015) The City Awakens to the Challenge of Mental Health. People & Strategy 38 1: 47-49
        • Cotton E (2015) (Ed) eBook. Sex & Psychopaths: Celebrating 100 years of Freud’s On Narcissism. London School of Economics Literary Review. ISBN 978-1-9998637-6-0
        • Cotton, Kline & Morton (2013) Following Francis: reversing performance in the NHS from targets to teams. People & Strategy, 36 1:63-65.
        • Cotton E (2013) eBook. Resilience in the Recession. LSE British Politics & Policy. ISBN 978-1-9998637-5-3

        Publication Feed

        Constructing solidarities at work: relationality and the methods of emancipatory education

        Cotton, Elizabeth (2018) Constructing solidarities at work: relationality and the methods of emancipatory education. Capital and Class, 42 (2). pp. 315-331. ISSN 0309-8168

        The Future of Therapy

        Cotton, Elizabeth (2017) The Future of Therapy. Surviving Work, www.thefutureoftherapy.org. ISBN 9781999863708

        Surviving Work in the UK

        Cotton, Elizabeth , ed. (2017) Surviving Work in the UK. Surviving Work in the UK . Surviving Work, LSE Business Review. ISBN 9781999863715

        Thinkers in Residence: An EBook for Thinking

        Cotton, Elizabeth and Evans, Jason and Whitehead, Oliver and Briggs, Jonny and Loewenthal, Del and Fuller, Steve and Weintrobe, Sally and Eden, Angela and Morgan, David (2017) Thinkers in Residence: An EBook for Thinking. Cotton, Elizabeth and Whitehead, Oliver , eds. The Photographers' Gallery, https://a-body-of-work-tpg.tumblr.com. (Published online first)

        Job coaches in GP surgeries: another attempt to pathologise the unemployed

        Cotton, Elizabeth (2016) Job coaches in GP surgeries: another attempt to pathologise the unemployed. London School of Economics, LSE British Politics and Policy Blog.

        View more publications

      • Funded Research &
        Knowledge Exchange Projects

        Elizabeth's current research involves a national survey of working conditions of mental health workers launched in November 2017 at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust. A summary of the research can be found at www.thefutureofwork.org.  Part of this dissemination will involve the creation of an online map of jobs and working conditions as well as academic publications and public engagement activities for frontline workers.

        Elizabeth set up Surviving Work in 2012 to provide online and face to face support and education for frontline workers and activists. This has involved blogging, social media and over 200 educational events and discussions about how to survive work. This has involved national and local level activities for Unison, NUT, TUC, UCU, Tavistock Clinic, British Psychoanalytic Council, Association of Child Psychotherapists, Manchester University, and the London School of Economics. The Surviving Work Library is made of hundreds of anonymous recordings of people’s experiences of surviving work as well as survival guides and eBooks. The Surviving Work blog uses popular language and humour to promote progressive models of mental health at work, psychoanalytic ideas and the politics of work. It has a readership of approximately 20,000 people.

        In 2016 Elizabeth created a joint online resource for frontline healthcare workers with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust www.survivingworkinhealth.org. The website is made up of videos, podcasts and eGuides on how to do it.

        In 2016-2017 Elizabeth edited and commissioned a column Surviving Work in the UK for the LSE's Business Review which looks critically at the changing nature of work, the growth of precarity and the impact on our states of mind. The eBook Surviving Work in the UK is available for free online.

        Elizabeth disseminates her academic research on social media - with regular blogging and articles published in professional and business publications. During 2015 she wrote a bi-monthly column for theconversation.com Battles on the NHS Frontline: Stories from the Vanguard of Health and Social Care, with a readership of 50,000 people.

        This has involved carrying out workshops and presentations on mental health at work extensively in the UK including London School of Economics, Birkbeck, UCL, Manchester Business School, Vienna University of Economics & Business, Tavistock Clinic, Tavistock Institute for Human Relations, ISPSO, OPUS, The Photographer’s Gallery, The Freud Museum. She is currently running a project with The Photographer's Gallery in London on the links between psychoanalysis and photography - Thinkers in Residence. To see the project's evolving online archive of recordings and material go here.

      • Engagement &
        Impact

        Elizabeth is an active researcher publishing in 4* journals. She led the successful bid to secure the Editorial Team of Work, Employment & Society, an ABS4 journal looking at the sociology of work. From January 2018 she will be joint Editor-in-Chief of WES leading a team of 12 senior academics from Middlesex.

        She is a Senior Fellow of the HEA, a member of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, British Sociological Association, Association of Psychosocial Studies.

         

        Public engagement & events

        • The Freud Museum: The Unthinkable. Organised and facilitated a one day event looking at the emergence of fascism in society July 2017.
        • Royal College of Nursing: Keynote Speaker at Organisers’ Annual Conference. Surviving Work in Healthcare May 2017.
        • Workshop: Surviving Work in Healthcare. Royal College of Psychiatrists March 2017.
        • Practitioner Health Programme: Surviving Work in Healthcare. Keynote Speaker February 2017.
        • Surviving Work in the UK: Edited a series of blogs in partnership with the LSE’s Business Review Surviving Work in the UK 2016-2017 which looks at precarious work and psychodynamic ideas at work http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/category/surviving-work-in-the-uk/
        • Association of Psychosocial Studies. Keynote Speaker, UWE. You don’t have to be mad: Surviving Work in Mental Health October 2016.
        • Durham Miners’ Gala, June 2016. Carried out an activists workshop as part of the Durham Miners’ Gala with Hilary Cave, NUM education officer during the miners’ strike.
        • During 2015 I wrote a column for Sage’s theconversation.com Battles on the NHS Frontline with an online readership of 20-45,000.
        • Public event: The Death Detectives, December 2015 Public event and publication of eBook, The Photographers’ Gallery London
        • Workshop: Surviving Work as a Psychotherapist, British Psychoanalytic Council & Association of Child Psychotherapists, November 2015
        • Public Event: Love: A Guide for Amateurs Freud Museum, February 2015 Public event and publication of eBook
        • Workshop: Do you have to marry a rich man to be a psychotherapist? PPNow BPC & UKCP, May 2015
        • Public Event: Sex & Psychopaths: 100 years of Freud’s On Narcissism, London School of Economics, February 2014, Public event and publication of eBook
        • Training: Bullying and team working short course for civilian GPs in the military for the BMA, 2014
        • Training: Short courses on bullying and mental health at work with trade union leaders at Ruskin College, Oxford 2013-2014
        • Workshop: Unison Leadership School, Warwick University, 2013
        • Project: Recordings and national review of Unison’s Return to Learn Programme, the largest adult literacy programme in the UK, 2013
        • Training: The Resilient Manager online course with managers from the London School of Economics, 2012

         

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