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Dr Laura McGrath

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Senior Lecturer in Psychosocial Mental Health
  • Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
  • School of Psychology & Counselling
  • Psychology
  • laura.mcgrath

Professional biography

Laura started at the Open University in August 2019 as a Lecturer in Mental Health. She previously worked at the University of East London, after completing her PhD at London South Bank University in 2012, following a conversion course to Psychology.

Research interests

Laura is interested in how people's material environments - places, objects, buildings - influence their psychological experiences. Her work in this area has included projects looking at how people using mental health services in the UK experience and use the spaces they spend time in (eg homes, hosptials, public places); research with staff and patients in a re-designed forensic psychiatric faciltity; and research looking at experiences of lockdown in Australia. Laura also has an interest in the relationship between art and health, and has been involved in a number of service evaluations with NHS and third sector partners. Her work is mainly qualitative.

Publications

The impact of the built environment on loneliness: A systematic review and narrative synthesis (2023-01-07)
Bower, Marlee; Kent, Jennifer; Patulny, Roger; Green, Olivia; McGrath, Laura; Teesson, Lily; Jamalishahni, Tara; Sandison, Hannah and Rugel, Emily
Health & Place, 79, Article 102962

Muting, filtering and transforming space: Autistic children's sensory ‘tactics’ for navigating mainstream school space following transition to secondary school (2022-02-02)
Birkett, Lily; McGrath, Laura and Tucker, Ian
Emotion, Space and Society, 42, Article 100872

‘You don't take things too seriously or un-seriously’: Beyond recovery to liminal and liminoid possibility in a community arts and mental health project (2022)
Laver, Cassie; McGrath, Laura; Liebert, Rachel Jane; Noorani, Tehseen; Barnes, Nick; Chase, Mike; Hall, Jon and Wakeling, Ben
Community and Applied Social Psychology, 32(4) (pp. 653-664)

Stuck in separation: Liminality, graffiti arts and the forensic institution as a failed rite of passage (2021-08-11)
McGrath, Laura; Mighetto, Isabella; Liebert, Rachel Jane and Wakeling, Ben
Sociology of Health and Illness, 43(6) (pp. 1355-1371)

Peripheral recovery: 'Keeping safe' and 'keep progressing' as conflicting modes of ordering in a forensic psychiatric unit (2021)
McGrath, Laura; Brown, Steven D.; Kanyeredzi, Ava; Reavey, Paula and Tucker, Ian
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 39(4) (pp. 704-721)

‘Trapped’, ‘anxious’ and ‘traumatised’: COVID-19 intensified the impact of housing inequality on Australians’ mental health (2021)
Bower, Marlee; Buckle, Caitlin; Rugel, Emily; Donohoe-Bales, Amarina; McGrath, Laura; Gournay, Kevin; Barrett, Emma; Phibbs, Peter and Teesson, Maree
International Journal of Housing Policy, 23(2) (pp. 260-291)

Organizing the sensory: Ear-work, panauralism and sonic agency on a forensic psychiatric unit (2020-11-01)
Brown, Steven D.; Kanyeredzi, Ava; McGrath, Laura; Reavey, Paula and Tucker, Ian
Human Relations, 73(11) (pp. 1537-1562)

Building visual worlds: using maps in qualitative psychological research on affect and emotion (2020)
McGrath, Laura; Mullarkey, Shauna and Reavey, Paula
Qualitative Research in Psychology, 17(1) (pp. 75-97)

Through the prison walls: using published poetry to explore current UK prisoners’ narratives of past, present and future selves (2020)
DeValiant, Georgina; McGrath, Laura and Kougiali, Zetta
Qualitative Research in Psychology, 17(2) (pp. 240-257)

The atmosphere of the ward: Attunements and attachments of everyday life for patients on a medium-secure forensic psychiatric unit (2019-03-01)
Kanyeredzi, Ava; Brown, Steven D.; Mcgrath, Laura; Reavey, Paula and Tucker, Ian
The Sociological Review, 67(2) (pp. 444-466)

Agents and spectres: Life-space on a medium secure forensic psychiatric unit (2019-01-31)
Reavey, P.; Brown, S. D.; Kanyeredzi, A.; Mcgrath, L. and Tucker, I.
Social Science & Medicine, 220 (pp. 273-282)

Living ‘in between’ outside and inside: The forensic psychiatric unit as an impermanent assemblage (2019-01-15)
Tucker, Ian M.; Brown, Steven D.; Kanyeredzi, Ava; Mcgrath, Laura and Reavey, Paula
Health & Place, 55 (pp. 29-36)

Contending with the minimum data set: Subjectivity, linearity and dividualising experiences in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (2019)
Bendall, Caroline and McGrath, Laura
Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 24(1) (pp. 94-109)

Electroconvulsive Therapy for Depression: A Review of the Quality of ECT versus Sham ECT Trials and Meta-Analyses (2019)
Read, John; Kirsch, Irving and McGrath, Laura
Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, 21(2) (pp. 64-103)

Life lines: Loss, loneliness and expanding meshworks with an urban Walk and Talk group (2018-09)
Muir, Jessica and McGrath, Laura
Health & Place, 53 (pp. 164-172)

Facing the void: Recollections of embodying fear in the space of childhood homes (2018-08)
Del Busso, Lilliana; McGrath, Laura; Guest, Carly; Reavey, Paula; Kanyeredzi, Ava and Majumdar, Anamika
Emotion, Space and Society, 28 (pp. 24-31)

The Psychological Impact of Austerity: A Briefing Paper (2016-12)
Mcgrath, Laura; Griffin, Vanessa and Mundy, Ed
Educational Psychology Research and Practice, 2(2) (pp. 46-57)

Psychologists Against Austerity: mobilising psychology for social change (2016-11-01)
Mcgrath, Laura; Walker, Carl and Jones, Christopher
Critical and Radical Social Work, 4(3) (pp. 409-413)

"Zip me up, and cool me down": Molar narratives and molecular intensities in 'helicopter' mental health services (2016-03)
Mcgrath, Laura and Reavey, Paula
Health & Place, 38 (pp. 61-69)

Transportations of space, time and self: the role of reading groups in managing mental distress in the community (2016)
Shipman, Judith and Mcgrath, Laura
Journal of Mental Health, 25(5) (pp. 416-421)

Seeking fluid possibility and solid ground: Space and movement in mental health service users' experiences of ‘crisis’ (2015-03)
Mcgrath, Laura and Reavey, Paula
Social Science & Medicine, 128 (pp. 115-125)

Exploring embodied and located experience: Memory Work as a method for drug research (2014-11)
Anderson, Katie and Mcgrath, Laura
International Journal of Drug Policy, 25(6) (pp. 1135-1138)

Embodying limb absence in the negotiation of sexual intimacy (2014-09-01)
Batty, Richard; Mcgrath, Laura and Reavey, Paula
Sexualities, 17(5-6) (pp. 686-706)

Heterotopias of control: Placing the material in experiences of mental health service use and community living (2013-07)
Mcgrath, Laura and Reavey, Paula
Health & Place, 22 (pp. 123-131)

The scenes and spaces of anxiety: Embodied expressions of distress in public and private fora (2008-10)
Mcgrath, Laura; Reavey, Paula and Brown, Steven D.
Emotion, Space and Society, 1(1) (pp. 56-64)

Understanding anxiety (2023)
McGrath, Laura
In: Mcgrath, Laura and Turner, Jim eds. Exploring Psychological Worlds: Thinking, feeling, doing (pp. 413-455)
Publisher : The Open University

Prejudice, power and psychology (2023)
McGrath, Laura and Reddy, Geetha
In: Mcgrath, Laura and Turner, Jim eds. Exploring psychological worlds: Thinking, feeling, doing (pp. 413-455)
Publisher : The Open University

Living well and wellbeing (2023)
McGrath, Laura
In: McGrath, Laura and Turner, Jim eds. Exploring psychological worlds: Thinking, feeling, doing (pp. 457-504)
Publisher : The Open University

Growing a Movement: Psychologists for Social Change (2022)
Psychologists for Social Change, and McGrath, Laura
In: Walker, Carl; Zlotowitz, Sally and Zoli, Anna eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Innovative Community and Clinical Psychologies (pp. 31-50)
ISBN : 978-3-030-71189-4 | Publisher : Palgrave MacMillan | Published : Cham, Switzerland

The Handbook of Mental Health and Space: Community and Clinical Applications (2018-08-29)
Mcgrath, Laura and Reavey, Paula eds.
ISBN : 9781138643932 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : London

Heterotopias of mental health care: The role of space in experiences of distress, madness and mental health service use. (2012)
Mcgrath, Laura
PhD thesis London South Bank University