Professor David Harper
Programme Director (Academic), Professional Doctorate in Clinical Psychology
Mental Health and Social Change, Psychology
David Harper is a clinical psychologist who worked in mental health services in the North West for nearly a decade before moving to UEL in 2000. Since 2014 he has been one of the two Directors of UEL's clinical psychology programme. His co-authored and co-edited book Psychology Mental Health & Distress won one of the two 2014 BPS book prizes.
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AE 1.12, Stratford Campus
School of Psychology
The University of East London
Stratford Campus
London
E15 4LZ - d.harper@uel.ac.uk +442082234021
Professor David Harper is co-Director of UEL’s Professional Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. He moved to UEL in 2000 after working for a decade as a clinical psychologist in NHS mental health services in the North West of the UK.
He has been Programme Director (Academic) of the DClinPsych programme since 2014. His co-authored and co-edited book Psychology Mental Health & Distress was awarded the 2014 BPS book prize. He was a co-author of the BPS (2018) Power Threat Meaning Framework and is interested in developing a more progressive approach to mental distress and public mental health. He supervises PhD and Professional Doctorate trainees on topics related to his research interests.
Associate Fellow of the British
Psychological Society
Registered practitioner
psychologist -- clinical psychologist (HCPC no: PYL05889)
Full member of BPS Division of
Clinical Psychology (DCP)
PhD (Manchester Metropolitan
University, 1999)
M Clin Psychol (University of
Liverpool, 1991)
BA (Hons) Psychology
(University of Liverpool, 1987)
Overview
David’s research interests are in critical psychology and social constructionist approaches in mental health, particularly in relation to psychosis, and also in discourses of surveillance in contemporary culture.
He is a member of the Editorial boards of Psychology & Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, Subjectivity, the Annual Review of Critical Psychology and the Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology.
David is a member of UEL’s Psychology and Social Change Research Group, Centre for Narrative Research and the Centre for Systemic Therapy Research. He is also a member of Psychology, Politics, Resistance, the Manchester Discourse Unit, the Soteria Network and Scientists for Global Responsibility and is part of the Advisory Group of the London Hearing Voices Project.
Interests and expertise:
- Critical qualitative research (e.g. Discourse Analysis) in mental health, particularly concerning professional discourse about concepts (e.g. psychosis and paranoid delusions) and interventions (e.g., medication, ECT and mental health legislation).
- Social inequality – both how it is explained and its influence on mental health.
- Discrimination against those experiencing mental distress – both exploring its effects and examining interventions which aim to challenge it.
- Psychological therapies which try to avoid pathologising users of mental health services.
- Critiquing the use of psychological knowledge in national security-related interrogation.
- Examining public perceptions of surveillance and dataveillance technologies.
Most Recent Research Areas
- Attachment and
paranoia
- Cannabis and psychosis: Service users’ views and experiences
- Conspiratorial
beliefs
- Constructing
concern about surveillance
- History of CBT for
psychosis
- Narratives of
psychiatric survivor activism
- The Power Threat
Meaning Framework
- Psychedelic crisis
support
- Reviewing
qualitative research on delusions
- Staff and service
user perspectives on ‘Borderline Personality Disorder’
Collaborators
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test
Research
Publications
Media work
Dave has written for the Guardian and been interviewed by BBC Newsnight Scotland, BBC Radio 4, BBC News online, the Guardian, Q magazine and Community Care magazine and the Norwegian Psychological Association.
Magazine articles:
Harper, D. (2011). No, we’re not ‘all in this together’. Asylum: The Magazine for Democratic Psychiatry, 18(1), 4.
Harper, D. (2010). Psychology and the ‘war on terror’ II: Psychological warfare and paranoia. Asylum: The Magazine for Democratic Psychiatry, 17(1), 28–30.
Harper, D. (2010). Rethinking ‘paranoia’. Asylum: The Magazine for Democratic Psychiatry, 17(1), 18–21.
Newspaper articles:
Harper, D. (2012, 22 February). The sad truth about the Action for Happiness movement, The Guardian, p. 35. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/21/sad-truth-action-for-happiness-movement
Parker, I., & Harper, D. (2008, January 25). Other lives: Terence McLaughlin [Obituary]. The Guardian, p. 42.
Other interests include:
- Transforming how mental distress is conceptualised,
understood and taught
- Developing more progressive approaches to public
mental health
- Advancing knowledge of the impact of social
inequalities on mental health and other social problems
- Changing how unusual beliefs and experiences
(including those attracting psychosis diagnoses) are conceptualised and
understood
- Qualitative mental health research methods from a
more critical perspective
- Discourse of paranoia and surveillance in
contemporary culture
- Critiquing the
use of psychological knowledge in national security-related interrogation
Interests
BSc Psychology: Careers in clinical psychology; Psychology,
individuals & Society
Professional Doctorate in Clinical Psychology
Personal & Professional
Development Tutor
PY8201: Convening C1 (Ethics & epistemology: foundations) and teaches sessions on
discrimination, the history of clinical psychology and mental health,
diagnosis, medicalisation, the Power Threat Meaning Framework. Teaching a C2 session on community
psychology. Convening C6 (Psychosis and
severe and enduring presentations) teaching sessions on the Mental Health Act
and on unusual beliefs.
PY8203: Teaching sessions on transtheoretical
approaches, discourse analysis and on poverty and social class.
PY8205: Teaching sessions on working with the media
and on prevention and promotion.