Vaughan Bell

Vaughan Bell is a British clinical psychologist, currently at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust specialising in psychological interventions for psychotic outpatients and in training other professionals to deal with such patients. He is a clinical senior lecturer in the Division of Psychiatry at the Faculty of Brain Sciences at University College London and a visiting researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. His research focus includes neuropsychology, social cognition, psychosis and brain damage.^[1][2]

Bell has been the most regular contributor to the Mind Hacks science blog, starting in 2002. In 2012 he won the Erikson Institute Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media.^[3] In 2014 he and academic Tom Stafford received the British Psychological Society’s Public Engagement and Media Award.^[4]

Bell has written articles on psychology and neuroscience for several newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian,^[5] Discover Magazine,^[6] Slate,^[7] Wired UK,^[8] The Independent^[9] and The Atlantic.^[10] He was interviewed in 2005 by the influential journal Nature about his experience as a scientist editing Wikipedia, specifically in challenging a section on violence in the schizophrenia article.^[11]

A fluent Spanish speaker, for several years he undertook teaching and clinical work at university facilities in Colombia and worked as a mental health coordinator for Médecins sans Frontières in difficult conditions.^[12]

Further reading

• Are understandings of mental illness mired in the past? John Cromby ('yes') and Vaughan Bell ('no') go 'head to head'.
• Our brains, and how they're not as simple as we think. Neuroscience has entered the public consciousness, and changed the way we talk about ourselves. But much of what passes as knowledge is inaccurate.

References