Holly Dale

Institution: Division of Psychology & Mental Health, University of Manchester, England.

Supervisory team:
Dr. Patricia Gooding; Prof. Gillian Haddock.

Position: PhD Student

Current research: Working Thesis Title: ‘Investigating the inter-relationships between serious mental illness, stigma, substance misuse and suicidal thoughts and acts’. My PhD is interested in how someone’s mental health issues (specifically, schizophrenia), substance misuse issues, and associated stigma (both internal and external) interact with one another to produce suicidal thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Throughout my PhD I will be working with a sample of both service users and professionals to try and understand the narratives service users/professionals use to understand these relationships, paying special attention to the places where these narratives differ. I will be using a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods throughout my PhD, with the overarching aim of building a theory or model of how these different factors interact with one another in people with serious mental health problems. Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) will be a core component of the PhD throughout, informing the nature and direction of the work.

Research interests:

• Serious mental illness; schizophrenia; psychosis
• Dual-diagnosis
• Suicide and self-harm
• Stigma
• Patient and Public Involvement (PPI)
  

Can help with: I have two years’ experience in systematic reviews, having worked for the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination and Cochrane Common Mental Disorders group, so very happy to help out with/advise on systematic review-related issues. Am also very interested in PPI/service-user involvement in research and ‘survivor research’ (research done by those with personal experience of the topic which they are investigating), especially in relation to mental health, so very happy to discuss anything to do with either of these two things.

What’s essential to your well-being? Being able to get out into the natural world on a regular basis (often hiking!); eating healthily; maintaining regular contact with friends and family; Radio 4 (I listen daily).

Find Holly elsewhere:

• Twitter
• Blog Mental Academic
• University Profile
• Email: holly.dale@manchester.ac.uk