Professor Paula Reavey

I joined LSBU in 1998, after completing my undergraduate psychology degree and PhD in Sheffield. I am currently working as a Professor of Psychology & Mental Health at LSBU whilst also serving a five year term as Deputy Director of the Centre for the Sciences of Place and Memory at the University of Stirling, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. I was conferred as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2023, in recognition of my outstanding contribution to social science practice.
My research focusses on lived experiences of distress and remembering across a broad range of contexts, including NHS and community (formal and informal) services. The perspective I adopt is grounded in an ecological and expanded model of distress and memory, where I aim to bring conceptually together environments, spaces and people.

I am currently working on a number of funded research projects, worth over 9 million pounds.

The centre for the sciences of place and memory, where I serve as deputy director at the University of Stirling is a 4 million pound project funded by The Leverhulme Trust and will run for five years (2024-2029).

I am also involved as CI in an NIHR Global Mental Health project examining and evaluating the use of mobile mental health units across Ukraine. This is a 3 million pound project running across four years (2025-2029).

I am working as co-PI on an NIHR i4i project examining the use of digital gamification to assist families with children's wellbeing - a three year project worth 1.7 million (2023-2026).

I am a co-PI on a project examining the mental health wellbeing of staff at a major engineering firm, worth 132 K (2025-2026).

Finally, I am co-I on an NIHR project examining experiences of receiving and supporting mental health at home - Hospitals at Home, worth 690 K (2026-2029).

Previous funded work.

I have also previously completed projects with the Wellcome trust and St. Andrew's Healthcare, examining how sexuality and relationships in forensic mental health services are understood and managed, with a view to developing a nation-wide policy and set of educational/training materials co-creating all policy and materials with service users and staff.
Second, a national level funded NIHR project, comparing hospital with intensive community treatments for young people using mental health services.
Third, a national level funded Mental Health in First Aid project examining the perspectives and experiences of the individuals delivering Mental Health First Aid in their place of work, as well as those receiving the service.
Fourth, an NIHR funded project evaluating the use of gamification in use with children and their families, to assist with mental well-being.
Fifth, an NIHR funded project evaluating community interventions for young people's mental health in central Bedfordshire.
Sixth, an NIHR funded project evaluating lived experience approaches used to tackle gambling related harms in Greater Manchester.

I have co-edited a number of books, including New Feminist Stories of Child Sexual Abuse: Sexual Scripts and Dangerous Dialogues (with Sam Warner, Routledge, 2003) Memory Matters: Contexts for Understanding Sexual Abuse Recollections (with Janice Haaken, Psychology Press, 2009), and Mental Health & Space (with Laura McGrath, for Routledge, 2018). I have also sole edited the volume, Visual Methods in Psychology: Using and Interpreting Images in Qualitative Research (Routledge, 2011 - second edition; 2021) and the commercial book series 'Design With People in Mind' (now in its 11th edition) - a psychological and medical evidence review for use by architects and designers, to improve mental health environments. I am currently working on a Routledge international vlume on lived experiences of distress, edited with Jacqui Dillon and due for publication in 2027.
I have also published two monographs - Psychology, Mental Health and Distress (with John Cromby & Dave Harper, Palgrave, 2013 - winner of the British Psychological Society Book Award, 2014 – now being published as a second edition, due 2026) and Vital Memory and Affect: Living with a Difficult Past (with Steven D. Brown, Routledge, 2015) and numerous articles on mental distress, social remembering and visual methods.

I founded the Masters in Mental Health and Clinical Psychology course at LSBU in 2014, following my passion for promoting lived experience perspectives of mental health. This programme has been designed and run with experts by experience, in collaboration with LSBU academics and a range of practitioners.