Biography

Sir David has devoted his professional life to improving the teaching of psychological skills to doctors of all kinds, and to improving the quality of services for those with severe mental illnesses. He has advised the Department of Health over the years about service developments, and has been extensively used by the World Health Organisation as a mental health consultant.
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His interests are in vulnerability factors which predispose people to develop depression, and in teaching general practitioners to give a better service to psychologically distressed patients. His research over many years has been concentrated on the details of communication between GP’s and their patients, and he has applied these principles to his teaching of mental health workers in developing countries. He has a major interest in the best way primary care and specialist mental health services should relate to one another. For the past 25 years my interests have extended away from doctors to the people who are in states of distress- with particular attention to the factors that make people vulnerable to stressful life events. My first book on this subject dealt with both GP’s and their patients (“Mental Illness in the Community, the Pathway to Psychiatric care” with Peter Huxley) and my most recent book takes a thorough, developmental look at the determinants of this vulnerability (“The Course and Origin of Common Mental Disorders” with Ian Goodyer).

He trained at the Maudsley Hospital, and after 24 years in Manchester where he was Professor of Psychiatry, returned to the Maudsley in 1993 as Professor of Psychiatry. He retired in 2000