Education
[Content warning: This talk includes discussion of topics which may be upsetting to some listeners including suicide, anxiety, depression, loneliness and self-harm]
Loneliness, self-isolation, social distancing and what the COVID-19 pandemic tells us about social influences on mental health.
Professor of Liaison Psychiatry Allan House outlines why physical illness is stressful and how one particular aspect of the COVID pandemic – social isolation – can harm our mental health. Focussing on the topic of self-harm and suicide during the pandemic, House explores how we can better protect ourselves against the risks posed by social isolation and how to approach those who insist that they know the answers to many COVID-related questions.
Further reading:
Allan House, Understanding and responding to self-harm: the One Stop Guide, Profile Books 2019.
Thomas Joiner, Why People Die By Suicide, Harvard University Press 2007.
Barnardo’s, 'Left to their own Devices: Children’s Social Media and Mental Health'.
About the speaker:
Allan House graduated in medicine from St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. After early career positions in hospital medicine and neurology, he trained in psychiatry and came to Leeds to work as a consultant in liaison psychiatry at Leeds General Infirmary. He was appointed Professor of Liaison Psychiatry in the medical school in Leeds in 1999.
His research interests include the interaction between physical illness and mental disorder, medically unexplained syndromes, and self-harm in adults. All his research is planned and delivered in collaboration with people with personal experience of using mental health services.
a.o.house@leeds.ac.uk / https://profallanhouse.co.uk/ / https://medicinehealth.leeds.ac.uk/medicine/staff/442/professor-allan-house
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