2018 Life Time EAPM Award

The 2018 Alison Creed Award for outstanding contribution to research in the field of psychosomatic medicine has been awarded to Professor Arthur Barsky. Doctor Barsky is a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Vice Chair for Academic Affairs in the Department of Psychiatry at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He has been awarded the Alison Creed Award for his work on somatization and hypochondriasis. In the 1990s he developed the somatosensory theory of amplification, which led on to developing behavioural interventions for the treatment of somatization. His published work on somatization has encompassed all aspects of the field including: psychological perspectives, childhood trauma and attachment,  gender differences, resource use, and disability. His work on hypochondriasis is particularly revered. It includes studies on psychiatric co-morbidity, panic disorder, childhood trauma and psychological treatment interventions. His work is methodologically rigorous, fine detailed and of a sustained high quality. Many of his publications have hundreds of citations, testament to the major impact he has had on the field.

He has been a world leader in his field for many years and served both on the DSM IV and DSM V working groups on the somatoform disorders.  He has published more than170 articles and is the Senior Editor of the Textbook of Depression in Medical Illness. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, has been a Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists, and served on the Council of the American Psychosomatic Society.