Rate My Professor Paula Reavey

Paula Reavey is Professor of Psychology and Mental Health in the School of Allied Health and Life Sciences at London South Bank University, a position she has held since joining the institution in 1998 following completion of her undergraduate psychology degree and PhD in Psychology from the University of Sheffield between 1995 and 1999. She leads the Lived Experiences of Distress Research Group (LEOD), which develops psychological and social theories of mental health experiences using non-diagnostic, psycho-social approaches aligned with the British Psychological Society’s Power, Threat, Meaning Framework. Reavey also serves as Deputy Director of the Centre for the Sciences of Place and Memory at the University of Stirling, a five-year term funded by a £4 million Leverhulme Trust grant from 2013 to 2026. She is Director of Research and Education for the Design in Mental Health Network in the UK and founded the Masters in Mental Health and Clinical Psychology course at LSBU in 2014.

Reavey’s research focuses on lived experiences of distress and remembering across NHS and community services, employing an ecological model that integrates environments, spaces, and people. Her interests encompass visual methods in qualitative research, mental health interventions including digital gamification for children’s wellbeing, community treatments for young people, and sexuality in forensic mental health services. She has secured approximately £12 million in funding from sources such as the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust, and Economic and Social Research Council for projects including mobile mental health units in Ukraine, staff wellbeing evaluations, and lived experience approaches to gambling harms. Notable awards include election as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2023 for contributions to social science practice and the British Psychological Society Book Award in 2014 for Psychology, Mental Health and Distress (Palgrave, 2013, co-authored with John Cromby and Dave Harper; second edition forthcoming 2026). Key publications also feature Visual Methods in Psychology: Using and Interpreting Images in Qualitative Research (Routledge, 2011; second edition 2021), Mental Health & Space (Routledge, 2018, with Laura McGrath), Vital Memory and Affect: Living with a Difficult Past (Routledge, 2015, with Steven D. Brown), and recent articles such as Collective memory and mental health: Limitations, provocations, possibilities (Current Opinion in Psychology, 2025, with S.D. Brown). Reavey edits the commercial book series Design With People in Mind (11th edition) and co-edits an international volume on lived experiences of distress (Routledge, 2027, with Jacqui Dillon).