In this episode I am speaking with Sir Robin Murray. Robin is a Professor of Psychiatric Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London.  Since qualifying in the 1960s he has made essential contributions to the way in which we understand and treat people experiencing psychosis, specifically schizophrenia. He is drawn to challenging the unorthodoxy of his discipline and does so with rigorous inquiry and an unwavering emphasis on patient wellbeing.

Robin was recently named the 2020 recipient of the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) Lifetime Achievement Award.  He has served as dean of the Institute of Psychiatry and is a key part of its Psychosis Research Group which, by some estimations, is the largest in the world. His work has been cited over one hundred thousand times and, according to Google Citations public profiles, his h-index is higher than that or either Noam Chomsky or Karl Marx!

During the interview we cover how he was first drawn to the field of mental health, the pitfalls of wrong interpretations of ever improving sources of data (specifically neuroimaging data on brain changes in schizophrenic patients), his hopes for reforms in psychiatric practice and the essential role of public health programmes in improving understanding and informing choice around mental health issues.

You can find Robin's profile here:

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/professor-sir-robin-murray

The music on this podcast comes from a mental health awareness track by one of our HELP University undergraduate students and can be heard in full here.  Thanks Eugene.