Sami Timimi


Sami Timimi is a British psychiatrist who is a consultant in Child and adolescent psychiatry at Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and a visiting professor at the University of Lincoln. He is Director of postgraduate education for the NHS in Lincolnshire.
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.
Timimi is patron to the charity Carefree Kids and has authored several books including 'A Straight-Talking Introduction to Children's Mental Health Problems'. He gained an NHS England Regional Innovation Fund award for leading on an Outcome Orientated Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services project. He is a member of the Council for Evidence Based Psychiatry which focuses on adverse effects of medications in the long-term.
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. He has described global mental health initiatives as a form of neo-liberalism. In his own practice he uses group psychotherapy focused on building relationships, using some techniques from The Nurtured Heart Approach.
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.

Books