Caroline Da Cunha Lewin is a PhD student, general nurse and lived experience researcher who joined Service User Research Enterprise, part of the Department of Health Service and Population Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London.

She is a recipient of the London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership studentship. Her areas of expertise include self-harm, mental distress, Patient and Public Involvement and qualitative research methodology.

Caroline gained both her First Class Honours BSc in Adult Nursing and Distinction grade MSc in Mental Health Studies at King’s College London. She has worked in a variety of clinical, educational and academic roles in the NHS and higher education, specialising mostly in adult mental health.

Most recently, she was based at King’s College London at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre as a mental health research nurse in the PPI theme. This involved managing research projects examining patient experience of mental health services. 

Research Interests

Caroline's doctoral project focuses on the lived experience of self-harm from a survivor perspective. Using qualitative methodology, she is investigating how people with lived experience and clinicians conceptualise the phenomenon. This will involve particular consideration of the intersect between embodied emotionality and trauma and whether, and how, this accounts for self-harm experience. This work will also consider how self-harm may be variably constructed and perceived across differing perspectives and experiences, and the implication of this on personal, relational and societal response to lived experience. Through this work, she is interested in developing a holistic understanding of self-harm experience to improve the efficacy and validity of clinical practice, research and discourse. Self-harm Recovery PPI Lived experience Survivor led research Qualitative methodology Mental health advocacy PhD supervisors Dr Angela Sweeney Dr Mary Leamy

Expertise and Public Engagement

Caroline currently lectures at both undergraduate and postgraduate level on topics such as the lived experience of mental distress and self-harm, survivor epistemology, qualitative methodology, including reflexivity, and participatory methods in research (such as Patient and Public Involvement in mental health research).

Her doctoral research includes collaborating with an advisory panel of people with lived experience of self-harm.