Dr Dan O'Hare
- Director Beacon Community Psychology
- Senior Lecturer University of Bristol
- Founder & director edpsy
Psychologist, academic and speaker with a commitment to making psychological knowledge genuinely useful — in schools, in communities, and beyond.
My approach to psychology
I strongly believe that psychological skills and knowledge can support positive change in a range of contexts — from individual children navigating difficult experiences to schools and communities grappling with the biggest challenges of our time.
I have a passion for making psychology accessible. To me this means talking with people about what matters to them most.
People often seek psychological support at some of the trickiest moments in their lives. With that comes strong ethical obligations — of responsibility, integrity and compassion — that I carry through to every aspect of my work.
I deliver psychology through joint problem-solving, recognising that the skills and strengths of the people I work with are not incidental to the process of change. They are vital to it.
Publications and presentations
A selection of academic, professional and conference work.
Papers
Roovis, L., & O’Hare, D.P. (in press). “We had nowhere to go”: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of children’s experiences of homelessness. Educational and Child Psychology. In press
Book chapters
O’Hare, D.P., & Meheux, M. (2022). Influencing policy and socio-political change. In L. Winter & D. Charura (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Social Justice in the Psychological Therapies. SAGE.
O’Hare, D.P., & Wheeler, T. (2022). Mindfulness in education settings. In Mindfulness-based approaches: a guide for psychologists, pp. 86–95. The British Psychological Society.
Discussion papers
O’Hare, D.P. (2022). The climate crisis, children, young people and educational psychology — a discussion paper. The British Psychological Society.
Professional papers
O’Hare, D.P., & West, R. (2022). Being Clear: an initial desktop review of LA EP service website. Edpsy.
O’Hare, D.P. (2021). Climate change: 10 things that educational psychology (EP) services could do to reduce their carbon footprint. British Psychological Society.
O’Hare, D.P., & Riviere, H. (2020). A resilience and coping framework for supporting transitions back to school. British Psychological Society.
Hill, V., Crawford, A., … O’Hare, D.P., Palikara, O., … (2020). Back to school: Using psychological perspectives to support re-engagement and recovery. British Psychological Society.
Duffield, S.J., & O’Hare, D.P. (2020). Promoting teacher resilience during coronavirus school closures. Division of Educational and Child Psychology.
O’Hare, D.P., Meheux, M., & Hill, V. (2020). Coronavirus and UK school closures: support and advice for schools and parents/carers. Division of Educational and Child Psychology.
Conference presentations
O’Hare, D.P. (2023). The Climate Crisis, children, young people and psychology. Paper presented at the BPS South West annual Gathering — Intergenerational Concerns into Climate Change: Psychological Perspectives.
O’Hare, D.P. (2022). Being visible and being heard: EP presence and impact. Paper presented at the annual professional event of the National Association of Principal Educational Psychologists.
O’Hare, D.P. (2021). Is there anybody out there? EP voice in the vastness of social media. Paper presented at the annual West Midlands EP service CPD conference.
O’Hare, D.P. (2020). Neuroessentialism: challenging the beneficence of ‘brain based’ explanations in our work. Paper presented at the Applied Psychologies annual CPD conference.
O’Hare, D.P. (2020). Neurobabble, Neurohype and educational psychology: a relationship that raises important ethical questions. Paper presented at the Annual Professional event of the Division of Educational Psychology of the BPS. Nottingham, UK.