OBE For Professor Paul Gilbert
4 January 2011
Professor Paul Gilbert OBE
Congratulations to Mental Health expert Professor Paul Gilbert who has been appointed OBE (Order of the British Empire) in the New Year's Honours list.
Professor Gilbert is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist for Derbyshire Mental Health Services NHS Trust and a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby. He is Director of the Mental Health Research Unit, based at Kingsway in Derby, which is a collaboration between the Trust and the University. Paul's OBE award recognises services to mental healthcare. He is the founder of the charity The Compassionate Mind Foundation (www.compassionatemind.co.uk).
Paul has earned an international reputation for work in a number of areas such as mood disorders, psychosis, social anxiety, shame, self-criticism and compassion. His models of defeat, entrapment and shame, linked to mood disorder, have been investigated by a number of international researchers with strong support.
His work on the therapeutic problems posed by high shame and difficulties in self-acceptance and kindness lead to the development of an innovative therapeutic approach now called Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT). CFT addresses people's difficulties with shame and high levels of self-criticism especially in people from troubled backgrounds, His current research is focused on understanding the interaction between different emotions system related to social affiliation and those related to shame and self-criticism. The Unit has recently developed a number of fear of compassion scales now being used internationally.
Paul was made a fellow of the British Psychological Society for contributions to psychological knowledge in 1993 and was president of the British Association for Cognitive and Behavioural Psychotherapy in 2003. He has also served on the government's depression NICE guideline committee and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. Paul is also one of the University's media friendly experts.
