What's exciting about psychiatry?

It is possible that 10 psychiatrists will give 10 different answers to this question. I chose to become a psychiatrist relatively early on in life and I found myself to be particularly drawn towards researching social relationships and how these impact people’s mental health. I was lucky to have the chance to work with inspiring colleagues.

At the beginning of my career, my interest was captured by the problem of coercive treatments. How do they impact experience of care and therapeutic relationships? How can we minimise coercive treatments or, when they are needed, apply the law fairly and in the best interest of patients? This is an ongoing area of interest for me.

I also worked on research looking at how professionals and service users can co-develop treatments and services that are as effective as possible. We found it was particularly important to work with people who are underreached by services, for example people who are migrants and/or from minoritised ethnic groups, and we did work with them.

As my research career developed, I had a chance to work with the social world of patients. Some of my recent projects aim to help those who are socially isolated to improve their social networks and their family members and friends to improve their own quality of life and the ‘informal’ support they provide to patients. Finally, in the Digital Era, any investigation of the social world needs to explore online connections and the interactions between us as humans and technology, including Artificial Intelligence. In the last couple of years, I have been looking into this too.