Lived Experiences of Distress (LEOD) Research Group

The LEOD group, led by Prof. Paula Reavey, focuses on building research and developing psychological/social theories of experiences relevant to mental health. The focus fits well with the proposed university Centre for Health and Wellbeing, as the LEOD remit includes theoretical and empirical works relating to experiences of distress, trauma, mental health service and community use. The objective is to develop a program that is largely non-diagnostic and psycho-social in orientation and is already recognised nationally and internationally. The existing LEOD group has run for several years, gradually accumulating relevant members from permanent staff and visiting scholars. We host a combination of non-traditional members from the expert-by-experience community as well as academics and clinicians from outside the university. Among those communities, we have well-known proponents of a perspective on mental health and distress that positions life events and experiences, rather than diagnosis, at the forefront of psychological theorisation. We have two leading figures from the British Psychological Society sponsored ‘Power, Threat, Meaning Framework’ as visiting scholars who support our research aim. The vision is to promote this alternative perspective through published scholarly work and funded research. We now have members working towards this aim, with invitations to deliver events at a national and international level and a strong and growing body of funded projects. We have also accrued around £12million of funding on mental health and/or related research. Supported by funding from the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), Leverhulme, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, our research group advances psychological understandings of mental health challenges and service use across a diverse range of groups, including children and young people, general adult, Black and Minority ethnic groups, forensic services and LGBTQ+ groups.