Tania Gergel

Professor Tania Gergel is Director of Research at Bipolar UK, an Honorary Visiting Professor in the Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences at Cardiff University and holds Honorary positions in the Division of Psychiatry at University College London and Centre for Humanities and Health, King's College London. She joined Bipolar UK in 2023 in order to establish an in-house research division within the Charity and is now a lead on multiple research projects focusing on bipolar and other severe mental illness, in particular issues surrounding suicide, as well as being a prominent advocate for lived experience involvement. Her academic career began in Ancient Philosophy, gradually moving towards Philosophy of Medicine. In 2012 she moved to the IoPPN, King’s College London, specialising in mental health, ethics, law and the phenomenology of severe mental illness, where her primary focus was the clinical, legal, and ethical issues surrounding the creation and use of advance directives in severe and episodic mental health conditions, also partnering with the Department of Health and Social Care to advise on the upcoming introduction of statutory provision for ‘advance choice documents’ within the (England and Wales) Mental Health Act. Her work focuses on putting the lived experience of mental illness at the centre of mental health research and policy, and she is internationally recognised for her work on bipolar, advance directives, ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) and innovation within coproduction.