Colleges
Daniel Freeman
PhD DClinPsy CPsychol FBPsS FBA
Professor of Psychology
- Lead, Oxford Cognitive Approaches to Psychosis (O-CAP)
- National Institute for Health and Social Care Research (NIHR) Senior Investigator
- Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
- Psychological therapies theme co-lead, NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre
- Founder of Oxford VR
- Professorial Fellow, Magdalen College Oxford
- Fellow, British Psychological Society
- Fellow, British Academy
My work aims to help improve the lives of people with mental health conditions by developing, testing, and implementing new cognitive-behavioural interventions. A key focus is on paranoia. Over the past decade I have developed the most effective psychological therapy for persecutory delusions: the Feeling Safe programme. This is a translational treatment built upon advances by my research group in the theoretical understanding of paranoia.
I have pioneered the use of virtual reality (VR) to assess, understand, and treat mental health conditions. These treatments are automated: a virtual therapist guides the patient through the program. This means the interventions can be supported by a range of staff, thereby increasing access to effective psychological therapy. gameChange, a ground-breaking VR treatment for people with psychosis, is now being used in mental health services in the UK and USA. Development of gameChange was supported by the inaugural National Institute for Health and Social Care Research (NIHR) Invention for Innovation Mental Health Challenge Award.
My current work includes producing a more accessible version of the landmark Feeling Safe programme; conducting a clinical trial of a new automated VR therapy for young patients with psychosis (Phoenix); developing and testing a new automated VR therapy for needle fears; running a large multi-centre clinical trial testing the effects of treating sleep difficulties in patients with psychosis; a randomised controlled trial evaluating psychological therapy for patients at crisis with suicidal ideation (RAPID); and carrying out new psychological studies of paranoia, grandiose delusions, and hallucinations. My research has been supported by the NIHR, UK Medical Research Council (MRC), and the Wellcome Trust.
I studied natural sciences at the University of Cambridge and then completed a PhD and a doctorate in clinical psychology (DClinPsy) at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. I have held a Wellcome Trust Fellowship, a Medical Research Council Senior Clinical Fellowship, and an NIHR Research Professorship. In 2011 I moved to the University of Oxford as Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry and set up the Oxford Cognitive Approaches to Psychosis (O-CAP) research group.
I joined the Department of Experimental Psychology in 2023 to hold the Chair of Psychology. I am a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, an NIHR Senior Investigator, founder of the University spinout Oxford VR, Professorial Fellow at Magdalen College Oxford, and Fellow of the British Academy. I am the recipient of the 2020 British Psychological Society Presidents' Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge.
Key publications
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Journal article
Freeman D. et al, (2022), Lancet Psychiatry, 9, 375 - 388
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Freeman D. et al, (2021), Lancet Psychiatry, 8, 696 - 707
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Freeman D. et al, (2021), Lancet Public Health, 6, e416 - e427
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Freeman D. et al, (2020), Lancet Psychiatry, 7, 628 - 637
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Freeman D. et al, (2018), Lancet Psychiatry, 5, 625 - 632
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Freeman D. et al, (2017), Lancet Psychiatry, 4, 749 - 758
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Freeman D., (2016), Lancet Psychiatry, 3, 685 - 692
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Freeman D. et al, (2015), Lancet Psychiatry, 2, 305 - 313
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Freeman D. et al, (2015), Lancet Psychiatry, 2, 975 - 983
Recent publications
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Journal article
Isham L. et al, (2023), Schizophr Bull
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The Oxford Positive Self Scale: psychometric development of an assessment of cognitions associated with psychological well-being
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FREEMAN D. et al, (2023), Psychological Medicine
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Bond J. et al, (2023), JMIR Serious Games, 11
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Finnegan SL. et al, (2023), PLoS One, 18
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Brown P. et al, (2022), Hum Vaccin Immunother, 18
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Sheaves B. et al, (2022), Clin Psychol Rev, 100
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Altunkaya J. et al, (2022), J Med Internet Res, 24
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Freeman D. et al, (2022), Schizophr Res, 250, 50 - 59
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Havers L. et al, (2022), Psychol Med, 1 - 13
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Diamond R. et al, (2022), Mental Health and Physical Activity, 23
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Taylor MJ. et al, (2022), JAMA Psychiatry, 79, 889 - 897
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Greenwood KE. et al, (2022), Psychol Psychother, 95, 680 - 700
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Isham L. et al, (2022), Lancet Psychiatry
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Bain N. et al, (2022), Vaccines (Basel), 10
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Sheaves B. et al, (2022), Schizophr Bull
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Bond J. et al, (2022), Psychol Psychother
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Rek SV. et al, (2022), Sci Rep, 12
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Hardy A. et al, (2022), JMIR Hum Factors, 9
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The meaning in grandiose delusions: measure development and cohort studies in clinical psychosis and non-clinical general population groups in the UK.
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Isham L. and FREEMAN D., (2022), Lancet Psychiatry
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Grech L. et al, (2022), Behav Med, 1 - 10
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Ward T. et al, (2022), Psychol Psychother, 95, 423 - 446
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Bird JC. et al, (2022), Psychol Psychother, 95, 508 - 524
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Waite F. et al, (2022), Psychol Psychother, 95, 525 - 540
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Day D. et al, (2022), Vaccines (Basel), 10
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Freeman D. et al, (2022), Lancet Psychiatry, 9, 375 - 388
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Freeman D. et al, (2022), Psychol Med, 1 - 12
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Brown P. et al, (2022), JMIR Form Res, 6
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Waite F. et al, (2022), Psychol Med, 1 - 9
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Černis E. et al, (2022), J Psychiatr Res, 148, 165 - 173
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Freeman D. et al, (2022), Psychol Med, 52, 794 - 795
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Rosebrock L. et al, (2022), Behav Cogn Psychother, 1 - 12
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Rek SV. et al, (2022), Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci, 272, 67 - 79
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Greenwood K. et al, (2022), Health Expect, 25, 191 - 202
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Freeman D. et al, (2022), Psychol Med, 52
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Nguyen M. et al, (2022), Asia Pac J Clin Oncol
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Forkert A. et al, (2022), Behav Cogn Psychother, 50, 15 - 27
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Conference paper
Yu CJ. et al, (2022), Proceedings - 2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops, VRW 2022, 868 - 869
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Freeman D. et al, (2022), Psychol Med, 52, 251 - 263
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Černis E. et al, (2022), Schizophr Res, 239, 11 - 18
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Journal article
Havers L. et al, (2022), Schizophr Bull Open, 3
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What moderates CBT for insomnia? Findings from a participant-level analysis of 8,549 individuals in 12 randomised controlled trials of digital CBT (Sleepio)
Conference paper
Miller C. et al, (2022), JOURNAL OF SLEEP RESEARCH, 31
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Alsuhibani A. et al, (2022), PLoS One, 17
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Gorisse G. et al, (2021), Sci Rep, 11
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Bird JC. et al, (2021), Aust N Z J Psychiatry, 55, 1166 - 1177
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Associations Between the Subdomains of Negative Symptoms in the General Population and Genome-Wide Polygenic Scores for Major Depressive Disorder and Schizophrenia
Conference paper
Havers L. et al, (2021), BEHAVIOR GENETICS, 51, 709 - 709
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Journal article
Bond J. et al, (2021), JMIR Res Protoc, 10
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Preprint
Brown P. et al, (2021)
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Fazel M. et al, (2021), EClinicalMedicine, 40
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McInerney J. et al, (2021), Behav Res Ther, 144
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Rek SV. et al, (2021), BMC Psychiatry, 21