This year’s Paykel Lecture at the McGrath Centre at St Catherine’s College, on Thursday 23 November 2023
This year’s lecture, entitled ‘The Future of Psychopharmacology as it Enters its Third Generation of Progress: Both Scientific Trailblazing and Serendipity are Evolving New Therapeutic Targets’ will be given by Dr Stephen Stahl from the University of California Riverside & the University of California San Diego, following an introduction from Professor Tamsin Ford, Head of Department of Psychiatry.
Prior to the lecture, there will also be a book signing of ‘The Cambridge Textbook of Neuroscience for Psychiatrists‘ and ‘Cambridge Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry‘, with the editors, Dr Stephen M. Stahl, Professor Peter Jones, Dr Mary-Ellen Lynall and Dr Sepehr Hafizi, starting at 4:30 pm along with refreshments.
Further details concerning the event can be found in the attached brochure.
If you would like to attend, please register via this link:
Everyone is very welcome to attend.
Download the event brochure here>>

The Paykel Lectures, as they are now known, were established in 1988 by the then Head of Department, Professor Eugene S. Paykel. The lectures are hosted by the Department to honour someone who is internationally recognised to have made a major contribution to the field of academic psychiatry. That person is invited to give the annual Paykel Lecture.
The lecture series was renamed the Paykel Lecture Series in honour of Professor Paykel, following his retirement from Head of Department in 2001.
Previous Lectures
Year | Speaker | Lecture |
2022 | Helen Minnis | Adventures in Randomisation |
2021 | Belinda Lennox | Brains on Fire- is some mental illness caused by immune dysfunction |
2020 | -No Lecture- | |
2019 | Jianfeng Feng | Computational Approaches to Mental Health Disorders |
2018 | Brenda Penninx | Personalised Medicine in Depression: Hype or Hope? |
2017 | Elisabeth Binder | Molecular mechanisms of gene x early adversity interactions: Implications for psychiatric disorders |
2016 | Professor David J Kupfer | Biomarkers and the Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis |
2015 | Nora D. Volkow | Brain on Drugs: from Reward to Addiction |
2014 | Oliver Howes | Dopamine: psychotic fire-starter? PET & MR imaging findings in the development of schizophrenia and implications for treatment |
2013 | Simon Lovestone | From Shaggy to dickkopf; deconvoluting the amyloid cascade in Alzheimer’s disease (and some thoughts on why mice don’t get dementia but killer whales should) |
2012 | Eileen Joyce | The Cognitive Impairment in Schizophrenia: Neural Basis and Clinical Relevance |
2011 | Guy Goodwin | The Bipolar Phenotype |
2010 | Peter Fonagy | Mentalization-based Therapy – State of the Art |
2009 | Wayne C. Drevets | Neurological Studies of Rewards Processing In Major Depression |
2008 | Eric Taylor | Impulsiveness and its pathology |
2007 | German Berrios | The Epistemology of Psychiatry |
2006 | Paul Harrison | Genes for schizophrenia and how they operate: What do we know and what does it mean? |
2005 | PJ Cowen | Recovering from depression: It’s not over when it’s over |
2004 | Simon Wessely | Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue – the story of the (?first) Gulf War Syndrome |
2003 | Jules Angst | The Mood Spectrum: New Developments |
2002 | – No lecture – | |
2001 | Myrna Weissman | How we began to study depression: a tribute to Eugene Paykel |
2000 | David Nutt | Imaging and Imagination in Anxiety |
1999 | Terrie Moffitt | Developmental Perspective on Anti-Social Personality Disorder: 25 years of Longitudinal Study |
1998 | Sir Robin Murray | Schizophrenia: Early Misconnections to Adult Misconceptions |
1997 | Peter McGuffin | The Molecular Genetics of Schizophrenia |
1996 | Robert E. Kendell | The Environmental Contribution to the Aetiology of Schizophrenia |
1995 | George W. Brown | The Psychosocial Origins of Depression and Anxiety Disorders: Recent Evidence |
1994 | Sir Michael Rutter | Why do some People have so much Stress? |
1993 | – No lecture – | |
1992 | Sir David Goldberg | The Psychiatry of General Practice: Altering a Filter to Mental Health Care |
1991 | Norman Krietman | Understanding the Epidemiology of Suicide |
1990 | George Winokur | The Correct Classification of the Manias and Depressions |
1989 | Elliot S. Gershon | The Scientific Revolution in Genetics and Psychiatry |
1988 | John K. Wing | What Care? Which Community? |