About
Dr Oli Delgaram-Nejad
I am a psycholinguist and researcher working at the intersection of language, cognition, and serious mental illness.
My work focuses on how disturbances of thought are reflected in language—particularly in schizophrenia— and on how careful attention to language can improve both scientific understanding and ethical engagement with lived experience.
This site acts as the canonical home for my research, writing, and public-facing work. It brings together academic scholarship, long-form analysis, and reflective media in one place, so that each can be understood in relation to the others.
What I do
My academic background is in psycholinguistics and clinical linguistics, with a particular focus on formal thought disorder, linguistic creativity, and naturalistic speech in psychosis.
I completed a PhD in Psycholinguistics at The Manchester Metropolitan University. My doctoral research combined experimental methods and corpus linguistics with NHS patient populations, leading to the development of the DAIS-C corpus—an open-access dataset of spoken language from clinical and non-clinical speakers—and a linguistically informed framework for analysing thought disorder.
Alongside academic research, I work as an independent consultant and advisor on large-scale mental health research projects. I support study design, data collection, and interpretation where language and lived experience are central concerns, and contribute advisory and peer-review expertise to research institutions, funding bodies, and lived-experience panels.
Lived experience and epistemic position
I am also someone diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. This lived experience is not presented here as authority or testimony in place of evidence, but as an epistemic position that shapes how questions are asked, how data are interpreted, and how ethical limits are maintained.
My work does not offer diagnosis, treatment advice, or clinical guidance. Instead, it documents and analyses how experiences of psychosis are articulated in language, and how meaning can fragment, reorganise, or stabilise over time.
This dual positioning—as a researcher and as someone with lived experience—informs both my academic writing and my public work, including first-person publications, books, podcasts, and long-form video discussions.
Books, podcasts, and video
In addition to academic publications, I write books and produce long-form audio and video content exploring language, psychosis, and meaning in depth. These projects are not simplifications of research findings, but extensions of the same questions into different formats.
My podcast and YouTube work focuses on slow, reflective analysis rather than explanation or instruction. Episodes are structured around real discourse—interviews, transcripts, and extended discussion—and are intended to function as reference material as much as linear content.
All of this work is linked here to preserve continuity of authorship and to make the relationship between scholarship and public discourse explicit.
What this site is — and is not
This site is
- a record of ongoing research and writing
- a hub linking academic, public, and media work
- an interpretive and analytical resource
This site is not
- a source of medical advice
- a diagnostic or treatment guide
- a substitute for clinical care
Any discussion of schizophrenia or psychosis here is descriptive and analytical, not prescriptive.
Location and reference
I am based in Exeter, England (UK).
Professional details, publications, and institutional affiliations can be found via my linked profiles and publications list. This site is maintained as the authoritative reference point for my work across platforms.
Last updated to reflect ongoing research, writing, and public work.