Lishman , William Alwyn , b 1931 , Professor of Neuropsychiatry

Born 16 May 1931; educated University of Birmingham; House Physician and House Surgeon, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, 1956-1957; Medical Officer, Wheatley Military Hospital, 1957-1959; Registrar, United Oxford Hospitals, 1959-1960; Registrar, later Senior Registrar, Maudsley Hospital, London, 1960-1966; Consultant in Psychological Medicine, National Hospital and Maida Vale Hospital, London, 1966-1967; Senior Lecturer in Psychological Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital and Royal Postgraduate Medical School, 1967-1969; Consultant Psychiatrist, Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals, 1967-1974; Reader in Neuropsychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, 1974-1979; Professor of Neuropsychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, 1979-1993; Visiting Fellow, Green College, Oxford, 1983; Advisor to Bermuda Hospitals Board, 1971; Scientific Advisor, Department of Health and Social Security, 1979-1982; Civilian Consultant, Royal Air Force, 1987-1993; retired 1993. Author of physiology and psychology papers on brain maturation, cerebral dominance, organisation of memory; clinical papers on head injury, dementia, epilepsy, neuroimaging, and alcoholic brain damage.
Publications: Organic Psychiatry: the psychological consequences of cerebral disorder (1st edition 1978, 2nd edition 1987, 3rd edition 1997). Lishman was approached by Blackwells Scientific Publications and encouraged by Sir Aubrey Lewis, Chair of Psychiatry at the Institute of Phychiatry to write a textbook on the organic basis to mental disease. The result was Organic Psychiatry, a seminal text in the fields of neurology and psychiatry. At the time of writing it is still widely used in the teaching of medicine and is part of the Neuropsychiatry training pack.