Eva Surawy Stepney

I am a PhD researcher in the Department of History at the University of Sheffield. My research looks at the history of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and its intersection with the development of British clinical psychology between 1948 and 1990. It focuses on the way in which distinct, and changing, conceptions of ‘science’ and ‘evidence’ underpin the conceptual components of this important psychological category. More broadly, my research is about the way in which particular scientific reasoning and methodology operates in clinical and therapeutic spaces and the implications this has for conceptions of psychological
distress.

I have spoken about my research on OCD, as well as my own experience, on The OCD Stories podcast, and have contributed to (and organised) The OCD in Society Conferences (2019, 2021, 2022). I also work as an editor at the https://thepolyphony.org/