How we work
Mental health care: a top priority
In the Netherlands, as in many other countries in the world, it is increasingly being recognised that mental health is a top priority. Our department aims to improve the mental health of the patients we treat, but we also focus on improving public mental health through our research. Most of our research is done in collaboration with other groups, both in the Netherlands and internationally.
Our research group is positioned both in the academic research environment of the Amsterdam University Medical Centers (department of psychiatry, location VUmc) and in the clinical environment of GGZ inGeest. This unique collaboration allows our research to be truly translational, yielding high quality research that bridges basic science and public mental health issues, connecting worlds that often remain separated.
Psychiatry research Amsterdam: a collaboration
- Our psychiatry research department is the result of a close collaboration between a large psychiatric care facility in the region Amsterdam (GGZ inGeest), the Amsterdam University Medical Centers (location VUmc, department of psychiatry) and two research institutes of Amsterdam Research.
- Our epidemiologic and implementation studies are embedded in the Mental Health program of the Amsterdam Public Health (APH) research institute.
- Biological, imaging and genetic studies are clustered in the programs Mood, Anxiety & Psychosis; Compulsivity, Impulsivity & Attention; Complex Trait Genetics and Brain Imaging of Amsterdam Neuroscience (AN).
- Our research focuses on depression and anxiety disorders, bipolar disorders, obsessive compulsory disorders (OCD), neuropsychiatry, soma & psyche and old age psychiatry. These research themes are organized in five Academic Workplaces.
