Jenni Ogden Ph.D.

About

Jenni Ogden is an award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction, holds a PhD in psychology, further postgraduate qualifications in clinical psychology and neuropsychology, and is an Emeritus Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and the New Zealand Psychological Society. She was awarded the Distinguished Career Award by the International Neuropsychological Society in 2015. In the mid-1980s, during a postdoctoral research fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she had the opportunity to work with the world's most studied neurological case, the amnesiac HM; the man with no memory. As a university professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, for 22 years she taught clinical psychology and neuropsychology, supervised numerous postgraduate theses, and carried out research on a wide range of neuropsychological disorders, publishing 60 research papers. She also practiced as a clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist in acute neurosurgical and neurology wards and rehabilitation centers. She is the author of the popular text, Fractured Minds: A Case-Study Approach to Clinical Neuropsychology, and a book for the general reader, Trouble In Mind: Stories from a Neuropsychologist's Casebook, published by OUP in 2012 in the US and by Scribe in 2013 in Australia. Her debut novel, A Drop in the Ocean, published by She Writes Press in May, 2016, won the GOLD Nautilus Book Award for Fiction, the GOLD Sarton Women's Book Award for Contemporary Fiction, the GOLD Award in the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYS) for for Best Fiction, Australia and NZ, and the SILVER Award in the Readers' Favorite International Book Awards for Women's Fiction. Jenni now lives with her husband on a remote island off the coast of New Zealand, enjoys her five grandchildren, travels extensively, and writes fiction with a psychological or medical theme. Subscribe to her monthly e-newsletter; visit her Author website and blog; watch her talk on Youtube at the Mind & Its Potential conference or listen to an interview as she talks about her patients on Australian National Radio program, All In The Mind.

Books by Jenni Ogden Ph.D.

Recent Posts

Wilderness Psychology

Camping in the wilderness is an experience unlike any other. It has its downsides, especially in the Australian Outback, but the upsides include therapeutic bird watching!

Money and a Room of One’s Own

The Bank of England has unveiled a ten pound note celebrating Jane Austen. Virginia Woolfe also has some insightful messages, still relevant today, about money and women writers.

David and Goliath: When Sports Inspire National Pride

When a small country beats a massive country in sport, we can all take inspiration from that.

What’s the Best Age to Be?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that enjoyment of life is a common ingredient in those who still excel either physically or cognitively into their very old age.

Fatigue, the Brain and Therapists

Studies have found that debilitating fatigue is a common symptom of many types of brain damage and disorders, from mild head injury to benign pituitary adenoma to dementia.

What Makes Your Child Happy? Make It Part of Their Education

How can we enrich our children’s education to ensure they have the best options available throughout a constantly changing future?

Give Your Kids An IQ Boost For Christmas!

A new book lays bare the myths and facts about IQ and how we can increase or stifle it.

Writing the Truth With Empathy and Ethics

Rebecca Skloot’s masterpiece on Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa story is also a study in the difficult art of sticking to the facts.

Can Novels Influence Our Beliefs About Reality?

Joyce Carol Oates’s depiction of an amnesiac, loosely based on HM, perpetuates negative stereotypes about women scientists.

The Thin Line Between Fiction and Fact

A new novel about the relationship of Einstein and his wife Mileva, told from her point of view, strays too far from the truth.