Presenter:
Professor Lord Richard Layard, Emeritus Professor of Economics, Centre of Economic Performance, London School of Economics

Panel Members:
Professor Peter Hobson, Tavistock Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust; Dr Andrew McCulloch, Chief Executive, The Mental Health Foundation; Professor Susie Orbach, Psychotherapist, Consultant and Writer; Alison Faulkner, Mental Health Service User, Consultant and Researcher

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Biography: Professor Peter Hobson

Peter Hobson is Tavistock Professor of Developmental Psychopathology in the University of London, based at the Tavistock Clinic and in the Behavioural and Brain Sciences Unit, Institute of Child Health, UCL. He is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and has a PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. His research interests converge upon the significance of interpersonal relations for understanding the course of human development, both typical and atypical, and include programmatic studies of autism and borderline personality disorder.

Biography: Professor Susie Orbach

Susie Orbach is a psychoanalyst and writer. She co-founded The Women’s Therapy Centre in 1976 and The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute, a training institute in New York, in 1981.

Her interests as a psychotherapist and writer have centred around psychoanalysis, gender, sexuality, countertransference and the body, psychoanalysis and the public sphere, the construction of femininity and emotional literacy. Her books include Fat is a Feminist Issue, Hunger Strike, What do Women Want?, Towards Emotional Literacy, The Impossibility of Sex and the forthcoming Bodies.

She is a founder member of ANTIDOTE (working for emotional literacy) and Psychotherapists for Social Responsibility and convenor of ANYBODY, campaigning for body diversity (www.any-body.org).

Susie is a Visiting Professor at the LSE and co-founder of Psychoanalysis@LSE and has been a consultant to the World Bank, the NHS and Unilever. She is a board member of The International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and has a clinical practice seeing individuals and couples.

Biography: Alison Faulkner

Alison Faulkner is a freelance researcher, trainer and consultant, working from a service user/survivor perspective. She has over 20 years experience of social research mainly in the mental health field, and has worked for the Mental Health Foundation, the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health and the National Centre for Social Research. From 1997 to 2002 she managed the ‘Strategies for Living’ programme at the Mental Health Foundation, which sought to document and disseminate people’s experiences of mental health problems through research, publications and conferences.

Since becoming freelance in 2002, she has worked for a range of organisations including Universities and Trusts, the Mental Health Foundation, Rethink, Mind, the Richmond Fellowship, the Home Office Safer Custody Group, and she is a member of INVOLVE. As a user of mental health services, Alison has experience of a range of services including acute inpatient care, crisis services, psychotherapy and medication.

Biography: Andrew McCulloch

Mr McCulloch has been Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation since October 2002.

Prior to this, Andrew was Director of Policy at The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health for 6 years. He was formerly a senior civil servant in the Department of Health for 16 years and was responsible for mental health and learning disabilities policy from 1992 to 1996. He has particular interests in policy development, partnership working, models of mental health care, human resources and public mental health. He has spoken and published widely on mental health issues.

Andrew’s other experience has included being a school governor, the non-executive Director of an NHS Trust, a Chair of mental Health Media, a charity dedicated to giving people with mental health problems and learning disabilities a voice. His PhD study related to psycho-social adjustment to old age.

Biography: Prof Lord Richard Layard

Richard Layard was founder-director of the LSE Centre for Economic Performance, a large research centre covering most areas of economic policy. Since 2000 he has been a member of the House of Lords.

He has written widely on unemployment, inflation, education, inequality and post-Communist reform. In recent years he has been actively involved in the new science of happiness, and in 2005 published Happiness: Lessons from a New Science.

Mental illness is probably the single greatest threat to a happy life, and for this reason Richard Layard is currently leading a campaign to provide within the NHS evidence-based psychological therapy for people with clinical depression and chronic anxiety disorder. The Depression Report, published in July 2006, is the manifesto for this campaign.

Richard Layard is also active in other happiness promoting policies, such as the emotional aspects of children's education, and initiatives by local authorities to monitor and improve the happiness of the population in their area. He founded the Employment Institute in 1985 to press for action to prevent long-term unemployment and was its Chairman from 1987-92. After Labour came to power, he was from 1997-2001 a government consultant on policies towards unemployment (including the New Deal) and towards skills.

He was Chairman of the European Commission's Macroeconomic Policy Group in the 1980s and then co-Chairman of the World Economy Group set up by WIDER. From 1991-97 he was an economic adviser to the Russian government's economic staff.

He has been on the staff of LSE since 1964.