Our Mental Wellness is a lecture series that focuses on mental health topics of broad interest to staff, students and Mental Health Talk. This fourth talk in the series, on the topic of Overcoming Mistrust and Paranoia, will be presented by Daniel Freeman, Professor of Clinical Psychology.

A Q&A panel discussion will follow, chaired by Cathy Creswell (Professor of Developmental Clinical Psychology), and include Daniel Freeman, Elizabeth Tunbridge and Kam Bhui.

Abstract:
The world can certainly feel a dangerous place. We don’t talk about it nearly enough, but every day each of us must decide whether or not to trust other people. There’s no way around these decisions: they’re an inevitable part of life. Paranoia is excessive mistrust of other people. Many people have a few paranoid thoughts, a few have many paranoid thoughts. This talk will cover a number of key questions: What is paranoia? How common is it? What is the latest scientific understanding of the causes? And what can we do to tackle it?