Can Attachment Theory Help Explain the Relationship between Childhood Adversity and Psychosis?

Associate Professor in the Psychology Department of the University of Auckland. He is the co-ordinating editor of Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Schizophrenia (Brunner-Routledge, 2004). Already in its fourth print run and translated into Swedish, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese, Models of Madness (co-edited with Professors Richard Bentall and Loren Mosher) documents the damage done by the dominance of a simplistic bio-genetic paradigm of psychosis and presents the research-based psycho-social alternatives to understanding and assisting people labelled ‘schizophrenic’. After obtaining his PhD in Clinical Psychology in the USA in 1983 he worked as a Clinical Psychologist and a manager of mental health services in the U.S.A. and the U.K. Most of this work was with people diagnosed as ‘psychotic’, most recently at the Psychiatric Inpatient Unit of Auckland Hospital in New Zealand. In 1994 he joined the Psychology Department of the University of Auckland where, apart from undergraduate teaching and the professional training of postgraduate clinical psychology students, he has published numerous research papers, with psychiatrists and other psychologists, documenting the link between childhood trauma and psychosis in general and hallucinations in particular. His other research publications include studies demonstrating that, contrary to the approach taken by most destigmatization programmes, biological causal beliefs about mental health problems are related to increased fear and prejudice. Dr Read is a member of the Board of the International Society for the Psychological Treatments of Schizophrenia and other Psychoses (isps.org) and Editor of the forthcoming ISPS journal Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches. E-mail: . For more information about John: .

Graduated in clinical psychology from the University of Glasgow in 1993. His first position as a clinical psychologist was within a North Glasgow Community Mental Health Team. In that team he was able to develop his interests in the psychological treatment of individuals with psychosis. He moved to Ayrshire and Arran Community Care NHS Trust in 1996, where he was able to carry out PhD research into psychological aspects of relapse in schizophrenia. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology and Programme Director for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology training programme. E-mail: .