Joanna Fox is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Anglia Ruskin University. Joanna identifies herself as a person with lived experience of mental ill health. Her lived experience plays a major role in her research, teaching and writing. Her PhD focuses on the carers' contribution to mental health recovery in the service user with schizophrenia, which will be completed by Summer 2013.

Professor Lena Robinson PhD is Professor of Social Work and Human Services at Central Queensland University, Australia. Previously she was Professor of Social Work at the University of the West of Scotland. She is an international scholar, who has delivered guest/public lectures and conference papers in India, South Africa, Ethiopia, Singapore, Indonesia, China, Australia, Canada and United States.

Keverne Smith was Course Director for BA Humanities at the University Centre, College of West Anglia, King's Lynn, from 2003 to 2011; this course was franchised from Anglia Ruskin University. His book, Shakespeare and Son: A Journey in Writing and Grieving, which examines the evidence that Shakespeare's later plays are affected by the loss in 1596 of his only son, Hamnet, appeared in 2011.

Dr James Truemanis a Senior Lecturer in Mental Health at Anglia Ruskin University, where he is the course leader for the Approved Mental Heath Professional training programme, and theme leader for mental health law. Outside of his legal interests, a significant amount of his time is currently dedicated to leading and supporting the implementation of technology in education.

Heather Castillo worked for many years in Mind Organisations in Essex, developing Advocacy for adults with mental health problems. She was also instrumental in setting up one of the first advocacy projects in the country for children and adolescents with mental health problems.

Steven Walker trained as a social worker at the London School of Economics and Political Science with a MSc. He qualified as a Systemic Psychotherapist in 1991 after studying at the Tavistock Clinic and the Institute for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice, London. He recently completed his MPhil in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

R.D. Hinshelwood is Professor in the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, and previously Clinical Director, The Cassel Hospital, London. He is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Currently he is completing Research on the Couch: Single Case Studies, Subjectivity and Psychoanalytic Knowledge to be published 2013; and a jointly edited book, with Nuno Torres, called Bion's Sources: The Shaping of his Paradigms (2013).

Tim French was until recently a Senior Lecturer in Mental Heath in the Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, Anglia Ruskin University. He has had extensive experience working for the National Health Service in England as a Community Psychiatric Nurse and has spent time caring for people within in-patient settings.

Emma Kaminskiy is a Ph.D student within the faculty of Health, Social Care and Education at Anglia Ruskin University. Her research is exploring collaborative psychiatric medication management.

Nicola Morant is an applied social psychologist working in the field of mental health. She is an Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, and an honorary Research Associate in the Research Department of Mental Health Sciences at University College London.

Shula Ramon is emeritus professor of interprofessional health and social studies at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, and Professor of mental health research at the University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield.

Hannah Walker was brought up on the Isle of Wight, where she also went to school. She is the Chair of the Dorset Mental Health Forum, a pan Dorset charity which exists to improve the lives of service users in the county. She is the co-editor of the book "Our Encounters with Madness", published by PCCS Books, which is becoming a set text for nursing students.