Journal of Psychiatry

JK Burns

Jonathan K Burns is a Head of Department and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Nelson Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban,KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. He is also Academic Leader (Research) for the NRMSM. He trained at the Universities of Cape Town and Edinburgh and obtained his PhD from UKZN. His research focuses on environmental risk factors for psychosis and, in collaboration with Columbia University; he is conducting an NIMH funded study of incidence, early course and treatment pathways of psychosis in a rural African setting [FEP-INCET Study]. Other research involvements include: mental disorders in refugees; HIV-related mental disorders; and mental health services development. He has published 35 peer-reviewed articles, various book chapters and is the author of The Descent of Madness: Evolutionary origins of psychosis and the social brain and co-author of the Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry. He is currently co-editing Textbook of Psychiatry for Southern Africa, 2nd Ed. He is a member of the ICD-10 Revision Expert Working Group on the Classification of Psychotic Disorders for WHO; is a Fellow of the American Psychopathological Association (APPA); and is Assistant Editor of the African Journal of Psychiatry.