Skip to main content
Play Aid

Meet Dr Mills

Dr john mills

Dr John P. Mills, CPsychol, FHEA

Director of Play Aid

Dr. John P. Mills is a British Psychological Society Chartered Psychologist and the founder of Play Aid.

Play Aid utilises Dr Mills’ expertise as a Chartered Psychologist, highly experienced educator (Dr Mills is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy), and internationally recognised researcher to lead our efforts in supporting men’s mental health.

Fun feature preview
Dr John Mills

About Dr John P. Mills

John P. Mills, PhD, CPsychol, FHEA achieved his doctorate at the University of Birmingham (UK) specialising in the psychosocial mechanisms that combine to regulate behaviour. He is the founder of Play Aid, an international non-profit organisation using the power of play to enhance men's mental health and wellbeing.

Dr Mills is an internationally recognised researcher in the field of sport and performance psychology, where he has published over 40 research outputs and presented at dozens of international conferences. He has also been a research group lead, held the roles of lecturer and senior lecturer at five UK Higher Educational Institutions, President of the Society of Transparency, Openness and Reproducibility in Kinesiology, served on the Editorial Board as an Open Science Advisor specialist to Science and Medicine in Football, and reviewed for every major journal in the fields of Sport and Exercise Psychology and Movement Science. Alongside his work with Play Aid, Dr Mills acts as a Science Advisor to one of Europe's leading Universities as well as holding a Fellowship at the University of Ulster where he is the Director of Studies for two PhD candidates.

Dr Mills' Publications

Publication List

  • Paoletti, V., Mayglothling, T., & Mills, J. P. (2023). The impact of training environment on Tokyo Olympic athletes’ wellbeing: a qualitative multiple case study. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 54(4), 348-371.

  • Morris, P., Hope, E., Foulsham, T., & Mills, J. P. (2023). Dancing out for a voice; a narrative review of the literature exploring autism, physical activity, and dance. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, 33, 202-215.

  • Morris, P. O., Hope, E., Foulsham, T., & Mills, J. P. (2023). Parent-reported social-communication changes in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. International Journal of Developmental Disabilities, 69(2), 211-225.

  • Mills, J. P., & Cumbers, L., Williams, S., & Titley-Wall, H. (2023). The effectiveness of mental health literacy interventions in young people: a meta-analysis. Mental Health Review Journal, 28(4), 386-395.

  • Mikuzis, J., Mills, J. P., & O'Gorman, R. (2022). Conceptualising Moral Integrity: an analysis of 21 uses.

  • Jones, B., Hope, E., Hammond, A., Moran, J., Leeder, T., Mills, J., & Sandercock, G. (2021). Play more, enjoy more, keep playing; rugby is a simple game. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 16(3), 636-645.

  • Kolliari-Turner, A., Oliver, B., Lima, G., Mills, J. P., Wang, G., Pitsiladis, Y., & Guppy, F. M. (2021). Doping practices in international weightlifting: analysis of sanctioned athletes/support personnel from 2008 to 2019 and retesting of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. Sports Medicine-Open, 7, 1-10.

  • Morris, P., Foulsham, T., Hope, E., & Mills, J. P. (2021). The effectiveness of mirroring-and rhythm-based interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

  • Morris, P., Hope, E., Foulsham, T., & Mills, J. P. (2021). Parent-reported social-communication changes in Children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. PsyArXiv.

  • Morris, P. O., Hope, E., & Mills, J. P. (2021). Dance, rhythm, and autism spectrum disorder: An explorative study. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 73, 101755.

  • Mills, J. P., & Mills, J. P. (2019). Values Based Coaching and the Coaches Role in Moral Development. SportRxiv.

  • Mills, J. (2019). First-Time Sports Coach. ISBN: 9781916204508.

  • Ing, C., & Mills, J. (2019). ‘Hey, look at me’: An [auto] ethnographic account of experiencing ADHD symptoms within sport. Qualitative research in sport, exercise and health, 11(2), 274-283.

  • Caldwell, A. R., Vigotsky, A. D., Tenan, M. S., Radel, R., Mellor, D. T., Kreutzer, A., Lahart, I. M., Mills, J. P., & Boisgontier, M. P. (2020). Moving sport and exercise science forward: A call for the adoption of more transparent research practices. Sports Medicine, 50(3), 449-459.

  • Clements, K., & Mills, J. (2020). Effective sports coaching: a systematic integrative review. SportRxiv.

  • Clements, K., Mills, J., & Freeman, P. (2020). Development of the Youth Coaching Effectiveness Scale. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 42, S71-S71.

  • Mills, J. P. (2020). Authentic Arseholes and the Problem with Transformational Leaders. PsyArXiv.

  • Zenko, Z., Steele, J., & Mills, J. (2020). Communications in Kinesiology: A new open access journal from the Society for Transparency, Openness, and Replication in Kinesiology. Communications in Kinesiology.

  • Nosek, B. A., Corker, K. S., Krall, T., Grasty, F. L., Brooks III, R. E., Mellor, D. T., Van Tuyl, S., Gurdal, G., Mboa, T., & Ahinon, J. S. (2020). NSF 19-501 AccelNet Proposal: Community of Open Scholarship Grassroots Networks (COSGN). MetaArXiv.

  • Mills, J. P., & Ing, C., Markham, T., & Guppy, F. (2018). It is not Black and White: A comparison of skin tone by playing position in the Premier League and English football. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 13(3), 398-404.

  • Mills, J. P., & Boardley, I. D. (2018). Development and initial validation of an indirect measure of transformational leadership integrity. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology.

  • Mills, J. P., Boardley, I. D., & Olton, A. (2018). Development and validation of indirect measures of athletes' attitudes towards controlled and uncontrolled forms of performance enhancement in sport. JOURNAL OF SPORT & EXERCISE PSYCHOLOGY, 40, S14-S15.

  • Mills, J. P., & Cumbers, L., Williams, S., & Titley-Wall, H. (2023). The effectiveness of mental health literacy interventions in young people: a meta-analysis. Mental Health Review Journal, 28(4), 386-395.

  • Mills, J. P., & Boardley, I. D. (2017). Advancing leadership in sport: Time to 'actually' take the blinkers off? Sports Medicine, 47(3), 565-570.

  • Mills, J. P., & Boardley, I. D. (2017). Response to: Cruickshank and Collins (2017) ‘Response to Mills and Boardley “Advancing leadership in sport: time to ‘actually’ take off the blinkers?”’. SportRχiv.

  • Mills, J. P., & Boardley, I. D. (2016). Expert Premier League soccer managers’ use of transformational leadership behaviours and attitude towards sport integrity: An intrinsic case study. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 11(3), 382-394.

  • Mills, J. P., & Boardley, I. D. (2016). Development and initial validation of an indirect measure of transformational leadership integrity. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 32, 34-46.

  • Mills, J. (2015). International Congress of Applied Psychology Special issue on Health Psychology including: Is Talking to Frank doing more harm than good? Measuring stress in children.

  • Mills, J. P. (2015). An [AUTO] ethnographic account of constructing, deconstructing, and partially reconstructing a coaching identity. Qualitative research in sport, exercise and health, 7(5), 606-619.

Google Scholar