Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist - Feeling Safer Programme

Job overview

We are recruiting for a Clinical Psychologist to join us and deliver specialist psychological therapy for people with psychosis through our programme: Feeling Safer.

This is an excellent opportunity to join a centre of excellence in the development and delivery of psychological interventions for psychosis: the Oxford Cognitive Approaches to Psychosis clinical research group. It is a thriving and supportive clinical research group, based in the University and Oxford Health, that aims to carry out work to the highest standards for patients.

You'll deliver specialist psychological therapy as part of the Feeling Safer project – a large multi-site randomised controlled trial testing a 6-month supported online programme for the treatment of persecutory delusions. You'll work clinically across a number of NHS trusts – facilitating a specialist remote clinic. There will be supervision, teaching, and publication opportunities.

If you have a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (DClinPsy) and an in-depth understanding of the theoretical and empirical foundations of cognitive approaches to mental health difficulties and excellent cognitive therapy skills, we'd love to hear from you!

Main duties of the job

This is an exciting new clinical psychologist post to deliver specialist psychological therapy to people experiencing psychosis. The interventions will be provided in the context of randomised controlled clinical trials - including an evaluation of a new six-month guided online programme for the treatment of persecutory delusions: Feeling Safer. Users can access Feeling Safer whenever they choose via smartphone/computer with support from a range of mental health workers. We hope this will substantially improve outcomes for people with persecutory delusions.

You will help facilitate this specialist remote clinic. You’ll deliver the intervention, supervise peer support workers and graduate mental health workers in treatment delivery, supervise research assistants, and work with local services at each of the collaborating NHS trusts. There will also be teaching, research supervision, and publication opportunities.

The primary base for this role will be at the Oxford Cognitive Approaches to Psychosis (O-CAP) team in the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. Please note if you are based outside of the UK you will need to hold HCPC registration in order to be considered for this role.

This is a 12 month fixed term contract linked to research funding.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Oxford Cognitive Approaches to Psychosis (O-CAP) team based in the Department of Experimental Psychology. We are a large clinical research team working to understand why mental health problems happen and how they can be best treated psychologically. The key focus is on improving outcomes for patients with psychosis. It is a thriving and supportive clinical research group that aims to carry out work to the highest standards for patients.

The focus of this post is delivering specialist psychological therapy for persecutory delusions in the context of a major new clinical trial. There are also supervision, teaching, and publication opportunities.

The position will suit a clinical psychologist keen to apply cognitive theory and therapeutic techniques to improve treatment outcomes. This is a fixed term 12month post in the first instance. We are keen to develop the post-holder in a clinical academic career. The post-holder will be supervised by Prof Daniel Freeman and Dr Felicity Waite.

• Contribute to the delivery of a specialist, remote psychological therapies clinic for patients with psychosis, as part of the delivery of the Feeling Safer trial.
• Deliver highly specialist psychological therapy to treat persecutory delusions as part of a large clinical trial: Feeling Safer. The postholder will maintain a caseload of approximately 15 patients seen remotely.
• Help support the day-to-day management of the project, ensuring milestones are achieved and the work is carried out to the highest standards.
• Contribute to the supervision of assistant psychologists/ graduate mental health workers and peer support workers in the delivery of psychological interventions.
• Contribute to the supervision of research assistants in the recruitment and assessment of trial participants.
• Work closely with the clinical teams in the collaborating NHS mental health trusts. This will include delivering new treatments to patients in these trusts as part of the clinical research and supervising and training others in the delivery of treatments.
• Provide regular reports on the progress of the study. This will include providing information needed by the funder.
• Work closely with other members of the O-CAP research group, helping to ensure the success of studies conducted within the group.

Please see the job description and person specification attached to this advert for more information on the job role.

Publications relating to this role:

Freeman, D., Isham, L., … Waite, F. (2025). A 6-month supported online program for the treatment of persecutory delusions: Feeling Safer. Psychological Medicine, 55, e179.

Freeman, D., Emsley, R., Rosebrock, L., … Waite, F. (2025). Efficacy of a 6-month supported online programme (Feeling Safer) for the treatment of persecutory delusions: protocol for a randomised controlled trial. BMJ Open;15:e104580.