Institute of Psychiatry

The Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) is a School of King’s College London. The people who work there carry out research to find out more about mental health problems and diseases of the brain in order to develop better treatments and services. They share their knowledge with the next generation of scientists and researchers by teaching on a wide range of postgraduate courses about research and mental health.

Many of the researchers at the IoP also work as mental health professionals in services run by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. The two organisations work closely together and are both part of ‘King’s Health Partners’. This is a group of organisations, including King’s College London and two other London-based NHS Trusts, that are pooling skills, expertise and resources to ensure top quality research leads to better health services being available more quickly. To find out more, visit the King’s Health Partners website.

The Institute of Psychiatry is based in Camberwell in south London, next to The Maudsley Hospital, which is run by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

A large number of researchers are investigating psychosis. They use a range of research methods and techniques – brain scanning; interviews with people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and their families; randomised controlled trials testing new treatments; sophisticated machinery studying DNA and proteins.

There are a number of research studies that are following the lives of pairs of identical twins who have volunteered to take part. Because identical twins share the same set of genes, their involvement helps researchers work out the role of ‘nature’ and the role of ‘nurture’ – what part genes have to play in the development of psychosis, and what influence events and circumstance have. (see What causes psychosis? page).

A specialist ‘Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health’ (BRC) is run by the Institute of Psychiatry and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and funded by the government’s National Institute for Health Research. The Centre is charged with ‘translational’ research – translating scientific discoveries into new treatments for people with mental health problems. The BRC carries out a lot of research into psychosis. To find out more, visit the Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health website.

Find out more about the work of the Institute of Psychiatry.