During his working career, he has been Principal Psychiatrist with the Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture in London, Honorary Senior Lecturer at St George's Hospital Medical School at the University of London[3] and a consultant to Oxfam on projects in war-affected settings.
[5] He has been involved with various studies on the effects of war and atrocity,[6][7][8] and of displacement and asylum-seeking[9] in Nicaragua,[10][11][12] Guatemala,[13][14] Bosnia[15] and the UK.
[22][23] He drew international attention with a series of publications questioning the existence of post-traumatic stress disorder,[24][25] criticizing the medicalization of psychotherapy for trauma[26][27][28] and the exaggeration of mental illness statistics.
[29][30] Recently he has argued that global mental health statistics should take into account differing ethnopsychiatric definitions.
[33][34][35][36] An October 16, 2004 editorial published by the British Medical Journal,[37] concerning what he described as the level of Israeli violence against Palestinian children generated controversy and a number of responses both negative[38][39] and positive.