International Health Humanities Network Membership

I am a clinical psychologist that did my BSc. in Psychology with Clinical Psychology at the University of Kent at Canterbury and then did an MPhil in Schizophrenia at uthampton University, in the UK and progressed to a PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Coimbra, Portugal.

My research interests are:

Cognitive models of paranoia, social anxiety and depression

• Bio- psycho-social aspects and interventions for early psychosis
•                           
• Social Mentality theory and eating disorders
• Mental health and unemployment
• Preventive Treatments of social phobia and paranoid ideation
• The Neurological basis of the threat vs. soothing systems in paranoia
• Self-administered programs for psychological well being                         
• Bullying and the protection of children’s rights
• I am also currently affiliated with the De Montfort Health and Life Sciences' Research Group as well as the Centro de Investigação do Núcleo de Estudos e Intervenção Cognitivo-Comportamental (CINEICC) at the Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciencias da Educacao da Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal and the 
• Mental Health Research Unit, University of Derby

I have been researching the cognitive and evolutionary mechanisms of paranoia and social anxiety. I have been fortunate to have worked with Professor Paul Gilbert and Paul Chadwick and collaborated with other researchers from the UK and Portugal to devise a new cognitive model for early psychosis.

At the present moment we are interested in the devising a self administered CBT and Compassionate Mind Training Program that would prevent social anxiety, depressive symptomatology and paranoid ideation. We intend to internationalise this program and to adapt this to different economic and social contexts.

I also did some consultancy work, I was the co-founder of the Project at the University Fernando Pessoa (Porto, Portugal) “Psychological consultations for the community”(September 2004-July 2005). Goal: provide psychological consultations and psychosocial help to the unprivileged population of Porto city

Key Papers:

Lopes, B. ; Pinto-Gouveia, J. ; Martins, S. (2011) A relação da paranóia com o afecto negativo em duas amostras não-clinicas da população Portuguesa, Psychologica, vol. 59, 212-224

• Lopes, B. ; Pinto-Gouveia, J. ; Martins S. (2011) Estudo da Adaptação Portuguesa da “General Paranoia Scale” (GPS) de Fenigstein e Vanable (1992) em duas amostras Portuguesas (estudantes e população geral), Psychologica, vol. 59, 300-320.
• Lopes, B. & Pinto-Gouveia, J. (2012) How Do Non-Clinical Paranoid and Socially Anxious Individuals React to Failure? The Role of Hostility and State Anxiety. Journal of Forensic Research, 3: 144. doi:10.4172/2157-7145.1000144
• Lopes, B. & Pinto-Gouveia, J. (2012) The impact of predisposition to hallucinations on paranoid vs. socially anxious individuals when faced with negative affective-laden sounds: an experimental investigation. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 00, 1-17 doi: 10.1017/81352465812000483
• Key research outputs: Lopes, B. (2011) Differences Between Victims of Bullying and Non-victims on Levels of Paranoid Ideation and Persecutory Symptoms, the Presence of Aggressive Traits, the Display of Social Anxiety and the Recall of Childhood Abuse Experiences in a Portuguese Mixed Clinical Sample. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Dec 6. doi: 10.1002/cpp.800. [Epub ahead of print]