Dr. Sami Timimi

About Dr. Sami Timimi

Dr Timimi offers assessments and interventions for a wide range of mental health difficulties in children, adolescents, and adults. His work integrates psychiatric, psychotherapeutic, and social perspectives, grounded in the belief that every person, and every context, is unique. He has particular expertise in supporting individuals who have received multiple diagnoses and undergone numerous interventions, including psychiatric medication, and who may now experience their difficulties as “complex.” He also specialises in helping people safely withdraw from, reduce, or rationalise psychiatric medications.

Dr Timimi has worked as a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist since 1997 and is also an experienced psychotherapist, having trained in a range of therapeutic approaches. He qualified as a doctor at Dundee University in 1988, became a Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1992, and was elected a Fellow of the College in 2012. Throughout his career, he has received multiple innovation awards and led numerous service developments, including serving as consultant to the Child and Adolescent Team of the Year at the 2023 Royal College of Psychiatrists Awards.

He is widely recognised as a thought leader in psychiatry, psychotherapy, and childhood studies, and regularly delivers keynote presentations at national and international conferences. He is also frequently interviewed across press, media, and podcast platforms.

In addition to his clinical and academic work, Dr Timimi is a prolific author. He has published over 150 articles and dozens of book chapters on topics such as childhood, psychotherapy, behavioural challenges, and cross-cultural psychiatry. He has also written several books, the most recent being Searching for Normal: A New Approach to Understanding Mental Health, Distress and Neurodiversity, published by Penguin Random House in 2025.

Over more than three decades of practice – working exclusively in the public sector until August 2025 – Dr Timimi has seen how mental health support can bring profound benefit, but also how it can sometimes cause unintended harm. These experiences have shaped a careful and thoughtful approach to practice, one that prioritises people’s innate capacity for resilience, growth, and psychological development. He has witnessed how, with patience and perseverance, young people who were once severely disabled by mental health difficulties can recover and rebuild their lives.

Dr Timimi also has expertise in brief interventions and places strong emphasis on knowing when not to label, intervene, or prescribe. He believes that people often already possess the knowledge and skills they need, and that with the right therapeutic support, they can be helped to access and strengthen these inner resources.

He believes that good mental health is rooted in relationships and in drawing upon the resources available within one’s social world. For this reason, particularly at the outset of assessment or treatment, he often prefers to meet with individuals, especially young people, alongside their families or other significant supports.

Above all, whatever path a person chooses, Dr Timimi wishes to reassure anyone struggling with mental health challenges of one core message that has become increasingly clear throughout his career: there is always hope.