Dr Eleanor Longden – Postdoctoral Service User Research Manager

Dr Eleanor Longden is the Postdoctoral Service User Research Manager at PRU and the current chair of its Service User Reference Group (SURG). Throughout her career she has drawn on her own experiences of recovery from psychosis to promote more creative, person-centred approaches to complex mental health problems that emphasise the lived experience and expertise of individuals more fully and has an extensive track-record of promoting user-informed perspectives on conceptualising and responding to psychosis.

In 2015 she was commended for this work with a Deputy Prime Minister’s Mental Health Hero Award. Her specialist research interests are trauma, dissociation and voice hearing, and she has published and lectured internationally on these issues including events for the American Psychological Association, the British Psychological Society, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, The Freud Museum, The Royal College Of Psychiatrists and The World Health Organisation.

Her 2013 TED talk on voice hearing was named by the Guardian newspaper as one of the ‘20 Online Talks That Could Change Your Life’ and in its first year online it was viewed 2.5m times and translated into 33 languages.

She is the coordinator of The Intervoice Scientific Committee a faculty member of the International Centre for Recovery Action in Practice, Education, and Research; and an advisory member of the forthcoming World Health Organisation Quality Rights Initiative, which aims to improve quality of services and promote human rights, empowerment, and inclusion for individuals with mental health difficulties.

She has authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles on psychosocial approaches to psychosis, including a commissioned report on recovery in response to the Australian government’s National Disability Insurance Scheme and was a contributor to the British Psychological Society’s landmark report Understanding Psychosis & Schizophrenia.

She is the author of Learning From The Voices In My Head and a collaborator on the award winning animation Compassion for Voices: A Tale of Courage & Hope.