Sami Timimi

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Sami Timimi is a British psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and author.. He works as a consultant in child and adolescent psychiatry. He writes from a critical psychiatry perspective on topics relating to mental health and childhood and has published extensively in medical, educational, and sociological journals.

Contents

Early life and education

Sami Timimi grew up primarily in Iraq until the age of 14, then due to political difficulties moved to England; his mother is English and his father Iraqi. He has written of his experience of psychiatric training and early practice. [1]

Career

Timimi is skeptical of the benefits of psychiatric diagnosis, seen as primarily cultural constructions, and has critiqued the medicalisation of the various problems subsumed under the categories of ADHD and autism. [2] He has described global mental health initiatives as a form of neo-liberalism. [3]

In his own practice he uses group psychotherapy focused on building relationships, using some techniques from the Nurtured Heart Approach. [4] [5] This therapeutic methodology, pioneered by Howard Glassner in 1992, is, according to the Nurtured Heart Institute, "based on the premise that an individual’s intense energy can be positively channelled and transformed into a positive force". [6]

Timimi has authored several books, including A Straight-Talking Introduction to Children's Mental Health Problems.[ when? ] [7]

His 2025 book Searching for Normal: A New Approach to Understanding Mental Health, Distress and Neurodiversity has received much acclaim. [8] [ according to whom? ]

Recognition

Timimi gained an NHS England Regional Innovation Fund award for leading on an Outcome Orientated Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (OO-CAMHS) project. [9]

Other activities

As of 2016 Timimi was a member of the Council for Evidence Based Psychiatry, , which focuses on adverse effects of medications in the long-term. [10]

In 2020, Timimi helped organise an open letter to Adrian James, the new president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, calling on British psychiatry to do more to tackle racism. [11]

Books

References

  1. ↑ Timimi, Sami. On becoming a child and adolescent psychiatrist: a personal account In Pathological Child Psychiatry and the Medicalization of Childhood, 2002/2014.
  2. ↑ Sami Timimi on ADHD, Autism and Children's Mental Health Apr 01, 2016, Psychology Today, Eric R. Maisel Ph.D.
  3. ↑ Sami Timimi, (2011) "Globalising mental health: a neo‐liberal project", Ethnicity and Inequalities in Health and Social Care, Vol. 4 Iss: 3, pp. 155 - 160. https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17570981111249293
  4. ↑ ADHD: 'Being different is not an illness' The Independent, William Sutcliffe, 21 September 2015.
  5. ↑ Nurtured Heart tempers ADHD InMind, December 2011, Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Trust
  6. ↑ "Nurtured Heart Approach training". Nurtured Heart. 1 January 1970. Retrieved 29 March 2025.
  7. ↑ Carefree Kids: Our people
  8. ↑ Timimi, Dr Sami (20 March 2025). Searching for Normal.
  9. ↑ Culture and Equality in Mental Health: Sami Timimi
  10. ↑ Council For Evidence-Based Psychiatry: Members Retrieved 01 August 2016
  11. ↑ O’Dowd, Adrian (3 July 2020). "Psychiatrists urge royal college to tackle racism" . BMJ. 370: m2657. doi:10.1136/bmj.m2657. ISSN   1756-1833. PMID   32620545. S2CID   220303090.
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