The Mental Health and Social
Change Group is a diverse grouping within the School of Psychology. Encompassing
various approaches and topic areas, we share a commitment
to psychological research and practice which is done with and
not to people and communities.
Group members work alongside
people with lived experience of distress, activists, practitioners and service
providers, to develop impactful research which has social justice at its core.
We are influenced by various intersecting traditions in psychology and the
social sciences, including: critical psychology; community psychology;
ecological psychology; affect theory; de-coloniality; feminism; and queer
theory.
Our core drivers as a group
are:
1. Towards
a psychosocial paradigm of mental health
The group has a long tradition
of research which underpins a psychosocial understanding of mental distress,
broadly arguing that distress is a meaningful psychological experience
developed in response to adverse life events. Research carried out by past and
current group members has been instrumental in arguing for a paradigm shift
away from narrow medical understandings of mental health and distress.
2. Towards
theoretical innovation in Psychology
Another core tradition of the
group is engagement with social theory to explore psychological research
questions. Theories of affect, process, narrative, feminism and coloniality
variously animate research done by group members, also inspiring methodological
creativity and experimentation.
Impact
Impact is central to the work we do in the Mental Health and Social Change group. Some examples of impact are:
This research has been widely reported in the press and media (SKY News, BBC1, BBC Radio 4, and most national newspapers), leading to pressure to change professional practice and guidelines. His research papers and recent systematic review have been submitted to the review of the NICE guidelines on withdrawal, to reflect the findings of the study. He is the BPS’s representative on Public Health England’s Expert Advisory Group for their current review of Dependence on Prescribed Medicines.
Group
members’ work arguing for a psychosocial approach to mental health has been
influential in both policy and public debates. This work has a long history in
the group, with past members’ producing seminal texts such as Mary Boyle’s
‘Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion’. Present members of the group continue
to work across academic, clinical practice and policy to influence
understandings of mental distress.
Professor David Harper and ProfessorJohn Read, for example, were co-authors of the ‘Power Threat
Meaning Framework’, an alternative to diagnosis published by the British
Psychological Society in 2018. This work drew on their extensive work on
trauma, paranoia and mental health, and also cited Professor Nimisha Patel’s work in the evidence base. This framework has
attracted international interest as providing a psychosocial alternative model
to a medical and diagnostic approach. This built on Harper’s authorhsip of the
psychosocial text book: ‘The Psychology of Mental Health and Distress’, which
won the BPS book award and has been widely adopted as a textbook.
A central theme in Dr. Ava Kanyeredzi’s work looking at Black Women’s experiences of abuse and violence was faith; she found all of the women she interviewed mentioned their faith; she found all of the women she interviewed mentioned their faith and had been helped or sought help from churches. Yet faith organisations and mental health services are rarely connected. This finding has been influential in setting up the Black Church Domestic Abuse Forum, a collective of pastors/church leaders, practitioners and academics who aim to empower Black majority churches (BMC) to become change-makers in their responses to and prevention of domestic abuse within their congregations, and within their local communities. A toolkit for helping churches to respond to reports of trauma and abuse is in development.
ProfessorNimisha Patel’s work with survivors of torture led her to establish the NGO ‘The International Centre for Health and Human Rights’ which works at an international level including with the UN. Rachel led the team which set up the Refugee Mental Health and Wellbeing Portal. The portal offers refugees, asylum seekers or internally displaced people, mental health practitioners and organisations easy access to a range of information, practical tools, resources and articles. The portal was highlighted as a major contribution by the Sunday Times review of British Universities. Rachel conducted an evaluation for the Transcultural Psychiatry Organisation (TPO) and War Child, in East Africa and ran master classes for the VPRS & VCRS programmes and for Public Health England.
Key projects
A shared interest of a number of group members is the exploration of theories of affect, feeling and emotion. Dr. Martin Willis, Professor Ian Tucker, Dr. Rachel Liebert and Dr. Ali Lara have all worked with theories of affect in developing theoretical and empirical psychological work. This includes Professor Tucker’s work looking at the digital contexts of emotion, leading to two co-authored books with Dr. Darren Ellis: Social Psychology of Emotion and Digital Contexts of Emotion. Dr. Lara’s theoretical work has focussed on arguing for the role of objects in mediating multiple layers of affective experience.
Dr. Rachel Liebert, Dr. Ali Lara, Dr. Sophia Bokhari and Dr. Stephanie Davis work with theories of decoloniality, exploring and challenging the impact of white supremacy in experience, policy and practice. Dr. Liebert takes a decolonial lens to questions of madness, power and bodies, including a commitment to decolonial theorisation and pedagogy. Together, the group have instigated a network for decolonial praxis and scholarship at the University of East London.
Materiality and space have historically been neglected in psychological research, due to a focus on the mind and social contexts. Several group members share an interest in redressing this balance and exploring the role of material space in psychological experience. Professor Ian Tucker and Dr. Ava Kanyeredzi have undertaken multiple projects exploring the role of material space in experiences of distress and recovery. This includes work in psychiatric institutions as well as in community settings. Dr. Lisa Fellin's work has included research exploring the material contexts of emotion and childhood.
Professor Nimisha Patel and Professor Rachel Tribe are internationally recognised experts in
refugee mental health. This work includes numerous academic publications,
consultancy, clinical practice and policy work, crossing between academic,
clinical and policy practices. Nimisha and Rachel were members of the BPS
Presidential Task Force on Working with Refugees and asylum seekers, which
produced BPS guidelines for psychologists in 2018. Rachel has also run training
for the Sri Lankan Office for National Unity and Reconciliation psychosocial
team, several Sri Lankan universities and helping establish a wellbeing centre
for students and staff.
Our team
Dr. Sophia Bokhari
Dr. Sharon Cahill
Dr. Stephanie Davis
Dr. Dominic Conroy
Dr. Lorna Farquharson
Dr. Lisa Fellin
Dr. Ken Gannon
Professor David Harper
Dr. Zetta (Georgia) Kougiali
Dr. Ali Lara
Dr. Rachel Liebert
Dr. Claire Marshall
Dr. Helen Murphy
Professor Nimisha Patel
Dr. Milda Perminiene
Dr. Joe Schwaerzler
Dr. Miles Thomas
Professor Ian Tucker
Professor Aneta Tunariu
Professor Rachel Tribe
Dr. Shashika Vethanayangam
Dr. Martin Willis
Dr. Nicholas Wood