Personal Chair: Matthias Schwannauer

Matthias Schwannauer has been made a Personal Chair in Clinical Psychology.

Professor Schwannauer is an Academic Clinical Psychologist with undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in philosophy, psychology and clinical psychology from the Philipps-University of Marburg (Germany) and the University of Edinburgh.

Following his training he worked in the adolescent mental health services in Glasgow, where he developed his interest in the ontogenesis of severe mental health difficulties.

He then joined the University of Edinburgh as a Clinical Research Fellow in the Division of Psychiatry where he had the opportunity to develop and evaluate psychological treatments for individuals suffering from bipolar disorder.

He joined the clinical psychology training programmes at Edinburgh in 2001 as a lecturer and then senior lecturer. In this role he taught and supervised applied psychology students in child and adolescent clinical psychology and the development and psychological treatments of severe and enduring mental health problems.

In 2009 he became Head of Clinical and Health Psychology and Programme Director for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University.

Clinically he is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the Early Psychosis Support Service at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in NHS Lothian.

His current research interests are focused on investigating developmental trajectories of mental health and wellbeing in children and young people and the development of psychological models of emotional distress, in particular the development of psychological concepts and treatments for psychosis and bipolar disorder.