The Psychosocial Interventions for Functional Improvement (PSI-FI) Lab is focused on developing, improving and implementing a range of psychotherapies and other psychosocial interventions to help people struggling with psychosis and other severe mental illness.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Mahesh Menon
Dr. Mahesh Menon is a Clinical Professor and co-head of the Schizophrenia Program in the Department of Psychiatry at University of British Columbia. He is also a Psychologist with Vancouver Coastal Health, where he leads the BC Cognitive Remediation Training Advanced Practice (CRT-AP).
Dr. Menon is the Principal Investigator of the Psychosocial Interventions for Functional Improvement Lab (PSI-FI Lab) at UBC. His research program focuses on psychosocial interventions for severe mental illness, and on the cognitive and neural basis of delusions and hallucinations in psychosis. He is one of the founding members of the North American CBT for psychosis network.
His research has been funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), the Ontario Mental Health Foundation (OMHF), the Brain and Behaviour Research Foundation (BBRF, formerly called NARSAD), and the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute.
Other staff and students
Keith Cheng: Research Assistant- Avatar study
Johanna Mickelson: Study therapist. PhD candidate- Department of Counselling Psychology, UBC
Aly Moscovitz: Study therapist. PhD candidate- Department of Counselling Psychology, UBC
Colleagues and collaborators
Dr. Todd Woodward: Dr Woodward is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, and runs the Brain Dynamics Lab. Dr. Woodward and Menon have worked together for over 20 years now on research related to delusions and other symptoms of psychosis.
Dr. Steffen Moritz: Dr. Moritz is a Professor and Head of Clinical Neuropsychology Working Group, in Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany. Dr. Moritz and Dr. Woodward were the developers of Metacognitive Training for psychosis (MCT), and Prof. Moritz has lead the subsequent development and adaptations of MCT for other psychiatric disorders (including depression, OCD and BPD), as well as briefer versions for inpatient settings. Dr. Moritz and Menon have worked together on the ongoing development of MCT.
Dr. Ariel Graff- Dr. Graff is a Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health, and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Dr. Graff and Menon worked on various neuroimaging projects related to brain mechanisms of delusions, anosagnosia and reward learning.