Institutes
Psychiatric Institute

Overview

Nine years ago, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities entered into a partnership in collaboration with the University of Chicago. There was widespread support for transfer to the University of Illinois at Chicago of the responsibility for research and education in the field of mental illness. The collaboration between the two universities and partnership with the state provides the promise of enhancing value and better servicing the public.

Public Service

The work of the Psychiatric Institute is research and education in service to the public. Our goal is the relief of suffering that so often afflicts those with serious mental illness- and the relief of suffering families and communities. Over the past several years, we have recruited new science groups to the Psychiatric Institute and have leveraged state dollars to generate new funds for research and education.

The Promise of Cure

Basic research develops that knowledge which offers the promise of cure. Clinical and mental health service research lead to improvement in care today in order to relieve suffering and enhance function. In our educational activities, we endeavor to prepare professionals to provide tomorrow's care: We train those scientists whose background in the basic and clinical neurosciences and in services research will lead to discoveries that will enhance care; and we support the educational needs of those currently in practice to keep them abreast of advances in clinical care today.

A New Beginning

Helping shape direction of these activities provides a capstone to my 35 years in public psychiatry. Our work provides service today and the hope of improvement of care in the future - bringing the process into the community so it can continue to grow. We have made a beginning. Share our vision, our hopes - and the promise.