Professor Derek Bolton

Derek Bolton is a Professor of Philosophy & Psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience. He obtained a first in Moral Sciences and a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Cambridge. His subsequent professional career was in clinical psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry and the Maudsley Hospital in London. He has published numerous papers in health sciences including on genetics and treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety disorders, as well as in philosophy of medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of An Approach to Wittgenstein’s Philosophy, Macmillan, 1979, reprinted 2013; Mind, Meaning, and Mental Disorder: The Nature of Causal Explanation in Psychology and Psychiatry, with Jonathan Hill, 2e, OUP, 2004; What is mental disorder? An essay in philosophy, science and values, OUP, 2008; and The Biopsychosocial Model of Health and Disease: New Philosophical and Scientific Developments, with Grant Gillett, Palgrave Open Access, April 2019. 

For the past ten years involved in the planning of CAMHS workforce training and new workforce training in London most recently in the implementation of the government’s green paper (DHSC & DfE, 2017) on improving access to and quality of mental health support for children and young people, with a particular focus on access within education settings.  

Research Interests: 

• Philosophy of psychiatry and medicine  
• Factors implicated in recently increasing demand for child and adolescent mental health services (interest in infancy) 

Teaching: 

• Philosophy of psychiatry and medicine  
• Factors implicated in recently increasing demand for child and adolescent mental health services (interest in infancy) 

Expertise and Public Engagement:

• Derek works with NHSE & HEE on planning and commissioning of CAMHS workforce training