Richard Bentall (born 30 September 1956) is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the

University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield (informally Sheffield University or TUOS) is a public university, public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Its history traces back to the foundation of Sheffield Medical School in 1828, Fir ...

in the UK.

Early life

Richard Pendrill Bentall was born in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

in the United Kingdom. After attending

Uppingham School Uppingham School is a public school (English fee-charging boarding and day school for pupils 13–18) in Uppingham, Rutland, England, founded in 1584 by Robert Johnson, the Archdeacon of Leicester, who also established Oakham School. ...

Rutland Rutland is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Leicestershire to the north and west, Lincolnshire to the north-east, and Northamptonshire to the south-west. Oakham is the largest town and county town. Rutland has a ...

and then High Storrs School in his home town, he attended the University College of North Wales, Bangor as an undergraduate before registering for a PhD in

Experimental Psychology Experimental psychology is the work done by those who apply Experiment, experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ Research participant, human participants and Animal testing, anim ...

at the same institution.

Career

After being awarded his doctorate, he moved to the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

to undertake professional training as a clinical psychologist. He later returned to his alma mater of Liverpool to work as a lecturer, after a brief stint working for the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

as a forensic clinical psychologist. Later, he studied for an MA in Philosophy Applied to Healthcare from the University of Wales, Swansea. He was eventually promoted to Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Liverpool. In 1999, he accepted a position at the University of Manchester, collaborating with researchers based there who were working in understanding the treatment of psychotic experiences. After returning in 2007 to a professorial position at

Bangor University Bangor University () is a Public university, public Research university, research university in Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales. It was established by Royal charter, Royal Charter in 1885 as the University College of North Wales (UCNW; ), and in 1893 ...

, where he retains an honorary professorship, he returned to the

in 2011, before moving to the University of Sheffield in 2017. His research continues to focus on the psychological mechanisms of severe mental illness and social factors that affect these mechanisms, which has led to a recent interest in public mental health. In 1989, he received the

British Psychological Society The British Psychological Society (BPS) is a representative body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom. History It was founded on 24 October 1901 at University College London (UCL) as ''The Psychological Society'', the org ...

's Division of Clinical Psychology 'May Davidson Award', an annual award for outstanding contributions to the field of clinical psychology, in the first ten years after qualifying. In 2014 he was elected a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in t ...

, the United Kingdom's

national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, and serves as a public policy advisors, research ...

for the humanities and social sciences.

Research

He has previously published research on differences between human and animal

operant conditioning Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is a learning process in which voluntary behaviors are modified by association with the addition (or removal) of reward or aversive stimuli. The frequency or duration of the behavior ma ...

and on the treatment of

chronic fatigue syndrome Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a disabling Chronic condition, chronic illness. People with ME/CFS experience profound fatigue that does not go away with rest, as well as sleep issues and problems with memory ...

. However, he is best known for his work in

psychosis In psychopathology, psychosis is a condition in which a person is unable to distinguish, in their experience of life, between what is and is not real. Examples of psychotic symptoms are delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized or inco ...

, especially the psychological processes responsible for

delusions A delusion is a fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some other m ...

and

hallucinations A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the compelling sense of reality. They are distinguishable from several related phenomena, such as dreaming ( REM sleep), which does not involve wakefulness; pse ...

and has published extensively in these areas. His research on persecutory (paranoid) delusions has explored the idea that these arise from dysfunctional attempts to regulate self-esteem, so that the paranoid patient attributes negative experiences to the deliberate actions of other people. His research on hallucinations has identified a failure of source monitoring (the process by which events are attributed to either the self or external sources) as responsible for hallucinating patients' inability to recognize that their inner speech (verbal thought) belongs to themselves. Along with many other British researchers, he has used these discoveries to inform the development of new psychological interventions for psychosis, based on

cognitive behavioral therapy Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression, PTSD, and anxiety disorders. Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on challenging and chang ...

(CBT). This work has included randomized controlled trials of CBT for first episode patients and patients experiencing an at risk mental state for psychosis. In a 1992 thought experiment, Bentall proposed that happiness might be classified as a psychiatric disorder. The purpose of the paper was to demonstrate the impossibility of defining psychiatric disorder without reference to values. The paper was mentioned on the satirical television program ''

Have I Got News for You ''Have I Got News for You'' (''HIGNFY'') is a British television panel show, produced by Hat Trick Productions for the BBC, which premiered on 28 September 1990. The programme focuses on two teams, one usually captained by Ian Hislop and one ...

'' and quoted by the novelist

Philip Roth Philip Milton Roth (; March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short-story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophical ...

in his novel '' Sabbath's Theater''. He has edited and written several books, most notably '' Madness Explained'', which was a winner of the British Psychological Society Book Award in 2004. In this book, he advocates a psychological approach to the

psychoses In psychopathology, psychosis is a condition in which a person is unable to distinguish, in their experience of life, between what is and is not real. Examples of psychotic symptoms are delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized or incoher ...

, rejects the concept of

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

and considers

symptom Signs and symptoms are diagnostic indications of an illness, injury, or condition. Signs are objective and externally observable; symptoms are a person's reported subjective experiences. A sign for example may be a higher or lower temperature ...

s worthwhile investigating in contrast to the Kraepelinian

syndrome A syndrome is a set of medical signs and symptoms which are correlated with each other and often associated with a particular disease or disorder. The word derives from the Greek language, Greek σύνδρομον, meaning "concurrence". When a sy ...

s. (Refuting ''Kraepelin's big idea'' that serious mental illness can be divided into discrete types is the starting chapter of the book.) A review by Paul Broks in ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' summarised its position as: "Like Szasz, Bentall is firmly opposed to the biomedical model, but he also takes issue with extreme social relativists who would deny the reality of madness." In the book, Bentall also argues that no clear distinction exists between those diagnosed with mental illnesses and the "well". While this notion is more widely accepted in psychiatry when it comes to

anxiety Anxiety is an emotion characterised by an unpleasant state of inner wikt:turmoil, turmoil and includes feelings of dread over Anticipation, anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response ...

and depression, Bentall insists that schizotypal experiences are also common. In 2009 he published '' Doctoring The Mind: Is Our Current Treatment Of Mental Illness Really Any Good?'' A review of this book by neuro-scientist Roy Sugarman argued that it allied itself with the

anti-psychiatry Anti-psychiatry, sometimes spelled antipsychiatry, is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment can often be more damaging than helpful to patients. The term anti-psychiatry was coined in 1912, and the movement emerged in the 1960s, ...

movement in its critiques of

biological psychiatry Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biology, biological function of the nervous system. It is interdisciplinary in its approach and draws on sciences such as ...

. The review in ''

PsycCRITIQUES ''PsycCRITIQUES'' was a database of reviews of books, videos, and popular films published by the American Psychological Association. It replaced the print journal ''Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books'', which was published from 1956 to 2 ...

'' was more nuanced, pointing out that Bentall did not reject psycho-pharmacology, but that he was concerned over its overuse. In 2010, Bentall and John Read co-authored a literature review on "The effectiveness of

electroconvulsive therapy Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a psychiatry, psychiatric treatment that causes a generalized seizure by passing electrical current through the brain. ECT is often used as an intervention for mental disorders when other treatments are inadequ ...

" (ECT). It examined placebo-controlled studies and concluded ECT had minimal benefits for people with depression and

. The authors said "given the strong evidence of persistent and, for some, permanent brain dysfunction, primarily evidenced in the form of retrograde and anterograde amnesia, and the evidence of a slight but significant increased risk of death, the cost-benefit analysis for ECT is so poor that its use cannot be scientifically justified".

Psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

s, however, sharply criticized this paper in passing by calling it an "''evidence-poor paper with an anti-ECT agenda''". In 2012, Bentall and collaborators in Maastricht published a meta-analysis of the research literature on childhood trauma and psychosis, considering epidemiological, case-control, and prospective studies. This study found that the evidence that childhood trauma confers a risk of adult psychosis is highly consistent, with children who have experienced trauma (sexual abuse, physical abuse, loss of a parent or bullying) being approximately three times more likely to become psychotic than non-traumatized children; there was a dose-response effect (the most severely traumatized children were even more likely to become psychotic) suggesting that the effect is causal. This finding, and other findings suggesting that there are many social risk factors for severe mental illness, has led to Bentall's current interest in public mental health.

Bibliography

* (The UK title is ''Doctoring the Mind: Why Psychiatric Treatments Fail'') * * * * *Morrison, A. P. & Renton, & J & French P & Bentall, R. P. (2008) ''Think You're Crazy? Think Again: A Resource Book for Cognitive Therapy for Psychosis'' London: Routledge. *Bentall, R. P. (2003) ''Madness Explained: Psychosis and Human Nature'' London: Penguin Books Ltd. *Bentall, Richard (1999). Why There Will Never Be a Convincing Theory of Schizophrenia. In S. Rose (ed). ''From brains to consciousness? Essays on the new sciences of mind'' London: Penguin Books. *Bentall, R. P. & Slade, P. D. (eds) (1992) ''Reconstructing Schizophrenia'' London: Routledge. *Bentall, R. P. & Slade, P. D. (1988) ''Sensory Deception: A Scientific Analysis of Hallucination'' Johns Hopkins University Press.

References

External links

Richard Bentall staff profile University of Sheffield
guest blog entry in ''

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