Professor Paul M Salkovskis
Professor Paul M Salkovskis BSc, M.Phil. (clin psychol), PhD, C.Psychol., FBPsSProfessor
Professor of Clinical Psychology and Applied Science
Head of Graduate Studies (Research)
Paul Salkovskis 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.
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.
Disorders treated
Obsessive compulsive disorder, health anxiety (hypochondriasis), panic disorder and agoraphobia, specific phobia.
Research Professor Salkovskis is currently involved in:
- Cognitive behavioural factors in obsessive compulsive disorder and its treatment: A wide ranging programme of research is under way in this area, including experimental investigations of cognitive components of OCD, questionnaire studies, treatment trials and clinical studies.
- Health anxiety (hypochondriasis): This research has previously included both experimental investigations and treatment trials. More recently, the role of health anxiety in a subgroup of chronic pain service users is being investigated including studies of phenomenology, descriptive questionnaire studies, experimental investigations and longditudinal investigations. Dissemination studies are also under way, including a randomised controlled trial conducted jointly with research groups in Denmark.
- Panic disorder and Agoraphobia: This is also a long-standing area of investigation, with research conducted jointly with David Clark and others. The main present focus of this strand of research is on investigating the dissemination of the treatment devised by this group. Other research (student led) investigates the link between depersonalisation disorder and Panic.
- Specific phobia: specific phobias have formed the focus of investigations designed to further understanding of the processing involved in the development and maintenance of phobic avoidance. Specific phobias allow researchers to investigate phobic anxiety under particularly well controlled conditions to evaluate the role of factors such as safety seeking behaviour, disgust, depression and so on, all of which have been researched by this group. Some of this work has involved randomised controlled trials of treatment, together with detailed experimental work.
- Health psychology: Within health psychology, the main foci of interest has been health screening, anxiety in response to medical procedures, decision making and "evidence based service user choice" and empirical work on ethical issues on these issues. Some of this research focuses on the interface between anxiety and health psychology for example, in the understanding and treatment of chronic pain. Survey/questionnaire studies, experimental work and clinical trials have all been conducted in these fields.
- Other topics
- From time to time Professor Salkovskis undertakes or supervises research in a range of other areas relevant to clinical psychology and applied science, ranging from depression to health choices and patient empowerment
