What is it like to live with psychosis, or Parkinson’s, or dementia, or to be autistic? The traditional approach is for an interested team of psychologists to design a study, and run it. But this is changing. People with disorders are no longer simply subjects to be studied but ‘experts by experience’, who can play key roles in the research process itself. ‘It’s about working with rather than on or for people,’ says Georgia Pavlopoulou, of UCL and the Anna Freud Centre. New academic/patient co-productions are now delivering all kinds of benefits, from unprecedented insights into complex disorders to improvements in vital services.
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