He graduated in Medicine and Psychology in Hamburg and qualified in psychiatry, neurology and psychotherapy in Berlin. He was head of the Department of Social Psychiatry at the Free University Berlin, before in 1997 taking up his current post as Professor of Social and Community Psychiatry at Queen Mary, University of London. He is Director of a WHO Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Service Development and leads a research group in East London that focuses on how social interactions can be used to reduce mental distress.