The role of Patron is to aid and enhance the awareness of OCD-UK in both the medical sector and the media, significantly raising the OCD-UK profile.
OCD-UK are delighted to be working with high profile and pro-active patrons. We are also extremely fortunate to have an overseas ambassador working to raise OCD-UK's profile overseas.
Dr Rajendra Persaud
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Dr Raj Persaud |
Dr Raj Persaud is Consultant Psychiatrist at The Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals in London and Gresham Professor for Public Understanding of Psychiatry.
Following a series of informative and professional media appearances talking about OCD, we felt Raj would make an ideal patron and spokesperson for OCD-UK so we were delighted when he accepted our invitation.
Raj is author of numerous best-selling books on the treatment and prevention of psychiatric problems including OCD such as ‘The Mind, A Users Guide’, ‘Staying Sane – How to make your mind work for you’ and ‘From the Edge of the Couch’ Raj currently presents Radio 4's 'All in the Mind' as well as the World Service series Travels of the Mind, which explores mental health issues all around the globe. Raj also co presents the live medical-talk and phone-in TV program Doctor, Doctor on Channel Five, where along with OCD-UK’s Diana Wilson, recently discussed OCD, and they both went on to work together discussing OCD on Richard and Judy (2007).
Dr Raj Persaud commented about joining OCD-UK: “I hope to be an active patron of OCD UK by helping to promote a wider understanding of the nature of OCD both amongst the public and the clinical professions - I hope OCD UK will benefit from my energy and assistance and the profile that being Gresham Professor for Public Understanding of Psychiatry might bring to the role."
Professor Paul Salkovskis
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Prof Paul Salkovskis |
Paul Salkovskis (BSc, M.Phil. (clin psychol), PhD, C.Psychol., FBPsS)
is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Applied Science. For 40% of his time he is also Clinical Director of the Maudsley Hospital Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma and OCD-UK are delighted that Paul accepted the invitation to be a Patron of OCD-UK, following his continued support and commitment to the charity.
Professor Salkovskis graduated in clinical psychology from the Institute of Psychiatry in 1979. He then worked as a clinical psychologist based in general adult psychiatry and in liaison psychiatry until 1985. In 1985 he moved to the University of Oxford where he worked on Medical Research Council funded research on panic. During this period he worked on theoretical, experimental and clinical applications of cognitive theory, particularly in the area of anxiety disorders and hypochondriasis (health anxiety). He was appointed to a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship, focusing on the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder and health anxiety. His final title at the University of Oxford was Professor of Cognitive Psychology. During his period in Oxford he developed a strong interest in health psychology, particularly aspects of health screening and health decision making. He moved to the Institute of Psychiatry in 2000 to take up the post of Professor of Clinical Psychology and Applied Science and his role as Clinical Director in the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma. His research in both anxiety disorders and health psychology continues at the Institute of Psychiatry.
Professor Salkovskis is also the editor of 'Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapy', the journal of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP), and President of the International Association of Cognitive Psychotherapy.
Professor Salkovskis has extensive links with other researchers and resources locally and nationally which allow access to participants for the research, most of which is focused on the application of cognitive theories. He also has international collaborations with a range of other research centres, including Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Morocco and the United States.
One of Professor Salkovskis main areas of expertise is cognitive behavioural factors in obsessive compulsive disorder and its treatment and leads a wide ranging programme of research in this area, including experimental investigations of cognitive components of OCD, questionnaire studies, treatment trials and clinical studies.
Paul may be remembered by OCD Sufferers for his work on the 2005 channel 4 documentary House of Obsessive Compulsives.
Dr Jeffrey Schwartz
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| Image source:
Ann Johansson |
Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz' input to the OCD-UK and in the field of OCD and anxiety, is invaluable, so much so that we are honoured to say that Dr Schwartz accepted our invitation to become an ambassador of OCD-UK. His book Brain Lock is the seminal text on OCD and very widely read.
Dr. Schwartz is a Research Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine and the author of almost 100 scientific publications in the fields of neuroscience and psychiatry. He is also the author of three popular books, the aforementioned 'Brain Lock', 'A Return to Innocence: Philosophical Guidance in an Age of Cynicism' (1998) and 'The Mind & the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force' (2002).
His major research interest over the past two decades has been brain imaging/functional neuroanatomy and cognitive-behavioral therapy, with a focus on the pathological mechanisms and psychological treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Dr. Schwartz received an honours degree in philosophy from the University of Rochester, and in the 1970s began to immerse himself in Buddhist philosophy, in particular, the philosophy of mindfulness, or conscious awareness. This is the idea that the mind is an active participant in the world, and that when the actions of the mind have an effect on the workings of the brain. It became his goal to find a scientific underpinning for the belief that mindfulness affects how the brain works.
In the 1990s, at UCLA, he made his key discovery: that a four-step cognitive behavioural therapy he pioneered is capable of changing the activity in a specific brain circuit of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, as shown on PET scans. After publishing his findings in scientific journals in the mid-1990s, Dr. Schwartz used his discovery (which is becoming a widely utilized treatment for OCD and has been corroborated by other research teams) as the basis for his book Brain Lock which leads readers thorough the four-step cognitive-behavioral therapy that he devised to treat OCD. This four-step cognitive-behavioral therapy is incorporated into the OCD Centre programme.
Dr. Schwartz's breakthrough in OCD provided the hard evidence that the mind can control the brain's chemistry, and that it can do so through the classic Buddhist idea of mindfulness. Dr. Schwartz's has lectured widely in the U.S., Europe and Asia to both professional and lay audiences. His most recent academic writing has been in the field of philosophy of mind, specifically on the role of volition in human neurobiology
Dr Schwartz is currently based in Los Angeles but is regularly in the UK.
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