Kate Lindley, Ph.D.

Phone: +41 79 626 15 86
Email: drkatelindley@gmail.com

Address:

P.O.Box 1714
1211 Geneva 01
Switzerland

I am an organizational development consultant based in Geneva, Switzerland. I work with corporate clients on approaches and tools for people and organizational development using training, facilitation, and coaching. I work in English, French and Swiss-German in a variety of public and private sector institutions and companies. Earlier in my career, until 1993, I held positions in training, learning and development as an employee in the hotel & catering industry, and later in the high tech industry. In 1995 I attended training in Appreciative Inquiry in London, and since then offer it to my corporate clients, along with Future Search conference and more recently World Café. I do my best work in close partnership developing practices that work for the organizational culture with HR and/or business management.

Later in life, I studied psychology, completing a bachelor and master degree with the Open University in the UK. I have completed coaching practitioner certification, and am currently completing a diploma in Narrative Therapy in the UK.

My doctoral dissertation, with the Taos PhD program, entitled “The social construction of a mother’s identity amidst the confluence of motherhood discourses” was presented in November 2013. A main part of this work was done using auto-ethnography, based on my personal experience as a mother with a child considered different, and narrative inquiry, for which I interviewed five mothers whose children had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). You can find my dissertation on this website under completed dissertations. Here is the abstract:

Motherhood is understood as a site of conflicting socially constructed discourses. Mothers find themselves subjected to a multitude of discourses which, when deconstructed, reveal the cultural norms and expectations of mothers, underpinned by the moral orders and values of society. This dissertation focuses specifically on the discourses about mothers whose children are considered different and in difficulty. I draw on my own experience as a mother of a child considered different and how I negotiated and narrated my identity within various culturally available discourses, a practice which allows me to be seen as populated by a multitude of selves.

In addition, the world of mothers with children considered different is opened up to our critical gaze. I discuss the way the dominant medical discourse about mothers has permeated the professions linked to children, and the possible effects this discourse has upon mothers. I describe various formulations of the medical discourse, such as lack of support and criticism, and its effects, through stories of mothers whose children have been diagnosed with the disputed learning disability Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in the French speaking region of Switzerland. Mothers negotiate and narrate their identity through positive re-storying and acts of resistance.

The interviews (in French) with the mothers were published separately in February 2011 in collaboration with the Aspedah. In 2012 I started giving conferences on the subject “Dealing with mother’s guilt” to the members of the Swiss-French association, Aspedah, for the parents of children with ADHD. I now lead Support & Development groups for all mothers whose children have been diagnosed and/or labelled as different, and offer coaching on an individual basis.

 Publication: 

  • Lindley Scheidegger, K. (2011) QuEst-CeQueJeNeDoisPasEntendre? Témoignages de meres. Geneva, Switzerland : The Talent Spirit. (Available from www.aspedah.ch)

Websites:

Kate Lindley, Ph.D. Files & Links