Stephen Frosh was appointed to Birkbeck’s department of Psychology in 1979. A specialist in the psychosocial approaches to human psychology, he initially worked part-time in the College, dividing his time with clinical jobs in the NHS and at the Tavistock Clinic as Consultant Clinical Psychologist. He stopped his clinical work in 1998 when he was appointed professor.

Due to the pressures of competing with the neuroscience branch of psychology for research funding and prestige, he eventually helped to found the current Psychosocial Studies department which then had five staff including Frosh.

To help the process of forging an intellectual community, Frosh founded and co-directed with interdisciplinary scholar Sasha Roseneil the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research (BISR) as an umbrella centre for people working in the field.