Student in Brynmor Jones Library

Psychology of Health, Mental Health and Wellbeing

Marie Reid (updated)
Faculty of Health Sciences
Professor Marie Reid
Professor/ Director of MSc Clinical Applications of Psychology/ Athena Swan lead for Psychology

The Challenge

We seek to better understand how psychological factors affect and interact with health, wellbeing and a range of physical and mental health problems. This knowledge is used to improve interventions and services, and to help health services become more psychologically-minded.

The Approach

Our work is multidisciplinary and often involves practitioners. We simultaneously work ‘bottom up’ (being informed by the realities of clinical and other practice) and ‘top down’ (being informed by psychological research and theory) to advance psychology theory and improve the psychological content of interventions and services.

Part of this multidisciplinary work often involves educating non-psychological colleagues and patients about the role of psychological factors in health and health behaviours, even regarding topics such as diabetes or recycling that do not superficially seem 'psychological’.

The impact

Examples include:

  • Better assessment of workplace stress in demanding jobs such as policing
  • Incorporating psychological interventions into an obesity service
  • Using focused memory techniques to reduce depression
  • Conducting neuropsychological assessments of people concerned about dementia
  • Trialling very low energy diets for weight loss for patients with polycystic ovarian syndrome
  • Developing the use of Schema Therapy for eating disorders
  • Developing service user involvement in substance misuse services
  • Evaluating interventions and services for metabolic disorders, eating disorders, intellectual disabilities and substance misuse
  • Understanding service users’ perspectives on their condition and treatment
  • Promoting biopsychosocial models of health and wellbeing in health care practice over purely biological models
Social Work

OUR AIMS

  • To improve the wellbeing of health and social care staff, patients, clients and the general public using psychological techniques
  • To develop new psychologically-informed interventions
  • To work in partnership with clinical colleagues to increase the psychological mindedness of services and interventions
  • To better understand the psychological condition of people with common mental and physical health problems
  • To better understand how psychological factors contribute to causing common mental and physical health problems

Projects

plastics-collaboratory-pullout

Evolving a Circular Plastics Economy

This large multidisciplinary project on recycling plastics includes developing understanding of all stakeholders' plastics recycling behaviours and their psychological motivators.

Police Officer

Evidence-based Personnel Selection for Humberside Police Force for Occupational Health and Stress Resilience

This project draws upon current understanding of stress and the factors that promote resilience to develop improved selection methods.

image-students-copy

Using Positive Simulation Training to Improve Expectations about the Future in Depression

This project builds on fundamental memory research and clinical work using positive imagery to intervene in depression by helping people think more positively about the future.

Soup

Randomised Controlled Trial of a Very-Low-Calorie Diet for Weight Loss for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome

This RCT involves women consuming a very low energy diet under clinical supervision, in order to achieve rapid weight loss. Psychology is central in screening participants for suitability for such a demanding intervention, and monitoring them to ensure distress is minimised.

Mental health

Trauma and Loss in the Life Stories of People with Serious Mental and Physical Health Problems

We have found that childhood trauma and loss are important in the life stories of drug injectors and people with eating disorders and we are now extending this to the life stories of people who are very obese.

View all projects

Evolving a Circular Plastics Economy

Lead: Felix Why; funding: EPSRC

This large multidisciplinary project on recycling plastics includes developing understanding of all stakeholders' plastics recycling behaviours and their psychological motivators.

Evidence-based Personnel Selection for Humberside Police Force for Occupational Health and Stress Resilience 

Lead: Felix Why; funding: WRDTP

This project draws upon current understanding of stress and the factors that promote resilience to develop improved selection methods.

Using Positive Simulation Training to Improve Expectations about the Future in Depression 

Lead: Rachel Anderson; funding: ESRC

This project builds on fundamental memory research and clinical work using positive imagery to intervene in depression by helping people think more positively about the future.

Randomised Controlled Trial of a Very-Low-Calorie Diet for Weight Loss for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome 

Lead: Marie Reid; funding: NHS

This RCT involves women consuming a very low energy diet under clinical supervision, in order to achieve rapid weight loss. Psychology is central in screening participants for suitability for such a demanding intervention, and monitoring them to ensure distress is minimised.

Trauma and Loss in the Life Stories of People with Serious Mental and Physical Health Problems 

Lead: Marie Reid; funding: Big Lottery Research Fund

We have found that childhood trauma and loss are important in the life stories of drug injectors and people with eating disorders and we are now extending this to the life stories of people who are very obese.

Members

Outputs and publications

Marie Reid contributed to the British Psychological Society report “Psychological perspectives on obesity: Addressing policy, practice and research priorities.” This received media coverage on the BBC and in national newspapers including the Independent, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

Boland, J. Riggs, K.J., & Anderson, R.J. (2018). A brighter future: The effect of positive episodic simulation on future predictions in non-depressed, moderately dysphoric & highly dysphoric individualsBehaviour Research and Therapy, 100, 7-16. 

Cartwright, L., Reid, M., Hammersley, R. & Walley, R. (2016). Barriers to increasing the physical activity of people with intellectual disabilitiesBritish Journal of Learning Disabilities. doi:10.1111/bld.12175

Greetham, S., Goodwin, S., Wells, L., Whitham, C., Jones, H., Rigby, A., Sathyapalan, T., Reid, M., Atkin, S.L. (2016) Pilot investigation of a virtual gastric band hypnotherapy trial for weight loss – a randomised controlled pilot trial. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. 64(4), 419-433. doi:10.1080/00207144.2016.1209037

Hammersley, R., Dalgarno, P., McCollum, S., Reid, M., Strike, Y., Smith, A., Wallace, J., Smart, A., Jack, M. & Liddell, D. (2015). Trauma in the childhood stories of people who have injected drugs. Addiction Research and Theory. Early online.

Pires, L., Moura, O., Guerrini, C., Buekenhout, I., Simões, M. R., Leitão, J. (2018). Confirmatory factor analysis of neurocognitive measures in healthy young adults: The relation of executive functions with other neurocognitive functions. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology. doi:10.1093/arclin/acy040

Why, F. Y. P., Undarwati, A., & Nuzulia, S. (In press). The sociodemographic context of observed solitary and social smoking behaviours using a behavioural ecological approachJournal of Health Psychology

Nuzulia, S. & Why, F. Y. P. (In press). When the Dark Shines: The Role of Dark Personality Traits in Leadership Role Occupancy and Hiring Decisions in a Collectivistic Culture. Social Psychological and Personality Science.

More publications

Research Students

Lauren Beadle

Evidence-based Personnel Selection for Humberside Police Force for Occupational Health and Stress Resilience

Felix Why

Jana Busch

Universities as laboratories for change: Exploring pathways to a Circular Campus

Pauline Deutz, Felix Why

Alice Cunningham

Personality Traits and Schema Modes in People with Eating Disorders: a Longitudinal Study

Marie Reid

Tyler Mills

Exploring Correlates of Substance Use Disorders in Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Men

David Smith

Siti Nuzulia

Dark Personality Traits and Occupational Outcomes in Indonesia

Felix Why

Anna Undarwati

Individual Differences in Food Choice Behaviours Using the Fake Food Buffet Paradigm

Felix Why

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