First Psychologist becomes President of the British Neuropsychiatry Association
We hear from Vaughan Bell, Chartered Psychologist and Professor of Clinical Psychology and Cognitive Neuropsychiatry at University College London, around his appointment and the importance of the multidisciplinary approach.
14 April 2025
What is neuropsychiatry?
If you know what Oliver Sacks was interested in, that's what neuropsychiatry is about. It's about psychological syndromes in neurological disorders, alterations to consciousness in epilepsy, functional neurological disorders, hallucinations in Parkinson's disease, movement problems in mental health difficulties, and the whole host of other problems at the borderlands of psychology, neuropsychology, psychiatry, and neurology.
Why has the British Neuropsychiatry Association become so important to you?
It's the only professional association where psychologists, neurologists, and psychiatrists meet and work together to better understand and treat these unique aspects of the human condition. We're a charity and we run an annual conference, a teaching weekend in Oxford, and free training events for members, as well as providing a monthly newsletter with the latest news and research on neuropsychiatry, so we're entirely focused on professional education and engagement.
As a psychologist, it also provides constant opportunities to engage with psychiatrists and neurologists and discuss these areas of common interest. There are so few forums for these genuinely cross-disciplinary discussions where everyone values perspectives from across the professions.
It's a place that really values psychological input but, it's worth saying, despite inviting a lot of psychologists to speak at our conferences and having psychologists on the board continuously for our 39-year history, psychologists are under-represented as members. I hope my presidency will encourage more of us to join.
How have your own views on Psychology changed over the years, in relation to all this?
I've always worked across neuro and mental health services and still do. I have a long-standing frustration with narrow perspectives no matter where they come from because they simply don't do justice to the complexity of the difficulties people face. It's no accident I've gravitated towards an organisation with an explicitly multi-disciplinary, anti-silo approach.
