Robert Blakey

Dr. Robert Blakey is a Lecturer in Mental Health at the Unit of Psychological Medicine within the Centre for Psychiatry and Mental Health at Queen Mary University of London. His research focuses on the neurobiological causes of violence, the impact of trauma on mental health, and the role of grief in fostering compassionate attitudes toward rehabilitation. He holds a PhD investigating whether neurocriminology education influences public support for punitive measures versus rehabilitation.

Key research interests include depersonalisation/derealisation disorder (DPDR), borderline personality disorder (BPD), and Mentalisation-Based Treatment (MBT). He explores post-traumatic stress through mechanisms like heart rate variability in dissociative states, and investigates how grief affects social cognition and mentalisation capacities. Blakey also examines physical exercise as a therapeutic tool for improving social cognition post-trauma.

Teaching responsibilities include the MSc Mental Health: Psychological Therapies program and a summer school on trauma studies. He supervises PhD students researching the dissociative subtype of PTSD, particularly its links to insomnia, social anxiety, and intergenerational trauma transmission.