Raj Persaud is a consultant psychiatrist working in the British National Health Service at the world-famous Maudsley Hospital in south London, and an honorary senior lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. In 2004 he was appointed Gresham Professor for Public Understanding of Psychiatry. Uniquely for a doctor, he also holds a first-class honours degree in psychology from University College London, which recently awarded him the title of Fellow in recognition of his ground-breaking work in psychiatry. Other medical awards and honours include the prestigious Royal College of Psychiatrists' Research Prize and Medal, the Denis Hill Prize and the Osler Medal. As well as medicine, psychology and psychiatry, he holds university-level qualifications in statistics, history and philosophy. Raj Persaud is the author of Staying Sane, The Motivated Mind, From the Edge of the Couch and Simply Irresistible, published in January 2007. He is also the consultant editor for The Mind: A User's Guide - presented in association with the Royal College of Psychiatrists - which will be published in 2007. His work has been published in academic medical journals, including the British Medical Journal, the Lancet and the British Journal of Psychiatry.

He writes regularly for the national press and has hosted BBC Radio 4's All in the Mind - the only broadcast series dedicated specifically to reporting on academic psychology and psychiatry. Raj also appears regularly on television programmes such as Question Time, Newsnight and Tomorrow's World. In a recent poll of members of the Royal College of Psychiatrists published in the Independent on Sunday newspaper, he was voted one of the top ten psychiatrists in the UK. He is married to an eye surgeon, has a son and a daughter, and lives in London.