In 1999, he accepted a position at the University of Manchester, collaborating with researchers based there who were working in understanding the treatment of psychotic experiences.
Along with many other British researchers, he has used these discoveries to inform the development of new psychological interventions for psychosis, based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
The paper was mentioned on the satirical television program Have I Got News for You and quoted by the novelist Philip Roth in his novel Sabbath's Theater.
In this book, he advocates a psychological approach to the psychoses, rejects the concept of schizophrenia and considers symptoms worthwhile investigating in contrast to the Kraepelinian syndromes.
(Refuting Kraepelin's big idea that serious mental illness can be divided into discrete types is the starting chapter of the book.)
A review by Paul Broks in The Sunday Times summarised its position as: "Like Szasz, Bentall is firmly opposed to the biomedical model, but he also takes issue with extreme social relativists who would deny the reality of madness."
[12] In 2012, Bentall and collaborators in Maastricht published a meta-analysis of the research literature on childhood trauma and psychosis, considering epidemiological, case-control, and prospective studies.