The UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute: A Legacy of Innovation in Mental Health

The UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI), now known as the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, stands as a beacon of progress in mental health research, education, and patient care. From its inception, driven by a visionary group of individuals, to its current status as a leading institution, the NPI has consistently pushed the boundaries of understanding and treating mental and behavioral disorders. This article delves into the history, key figures, and landmark programs that have shaped the NPI into the internationally recognized facility it is today.

The Genesis of a Vision: Laying the Foundation

The seeds of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute were sown in the mid-20th century, a time when attitudes toward mental health were undergoing significant transformation. Three-quarters of a century ago, a group of UC faculty, administrators from the Department of Mental Hygiene, and California State Legislators foresaw the need for research into the fundamental causes of mental and nervous disorders. The visionaries recognized the necessity of a dedicated research and clinical facility to address the complex challenges of mental illness.

In 1947, Dr. Stafford Warren was appointed the founding Dean of the UCLA School of Medicine. He dreamed of creating a “Langley Porter of the South” after the legendary Psychiatry Clinic in San Francisco based at the UCSF School of Medicine. He appointed Horace Magoun, Chair of Anatomy of the new medical school. Dr. Magoun dreamed of creating a West Coast Center for Neuroscience.

This vision began to materialize in 1941 when the California State Legislature approved funding for Langley Porter Clinic, a psychiatric research and clinical facility on property adjacent to the campus of UC San Francisco. In January 1949, the UC regents agreed that UCLA would make land available on campus for an institute that would not be limited to psychiatry, but would also include neurology and neurosurgery. In 1953, Dr. Norman Q. Brill joined the UCLA School of Medicine faculty. Brill was recruited from Georgetown to become the founding chair of the Psychiatry Department at the new UCLA School of Medicine. He helped develop its psychiatry department into one of the largest in the world, and supervised planning for the state- and federal-funded institute. Brill headed recruitment for the facility, created teaching programs and directed community relations.

The Founding of the NPI and Early Years

Construction of the building began 1958, and the first patient was admitted in 1961. The UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital opened in 1961, consisting of The UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI) and the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital (NPH). It was in charge of the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Neurology, and Neurosurgery and Neuropathology services. The Brain Research Institute building, dedicated to neuroscience research and education, was also completed in 1961. Together, the two buildings constituted a powerful West Coast complex for research, education, and clinical care in neurology, neurosurgery, neuroscience and psychiatry.

Dr. Norman Q. Brill, UCLA’s first chairman of psychiatry and the founding director of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, played a pivotal role in shaping the institute's early direction. He joined the UCLA School of Medicine faculty in 1953 and helped develop its psychiatry department into one of the largest in the world. During the 1950s, he also supervised planning for the state- and federal-funded institute that opened in 1961 and is now an internationally recognized clinical and research facility for mental health. Brill headed recruitment for the facility, created teaching programs and directed community relations.

According to university officials, Dr. Brill, who also had a long association with the Army and the VA Medical Center in West Los Angeles, died April 8 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Brill, who stepped down as chairman of the UCLA psychiatry department and the Neuropsychiatric Institute in 1967, continued to teach at UCLA until his retirement in 1979. During his Westwood tenure, he helped organize psychiatric units at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance and at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, where he worked from 1979 to 1989 as associate chief of staff for education.

Dr. Gerald S. Levey, dean of the UCLA School of Medicine and provost of medical sciences, said that Dr. Brill laid the foundations for modern psychiatric treatment in Los Angeles, and that in a profound way, a little of Norman Brill’s caring and compassion goes into the treatment of every psychiatric patient we see today.

Brill began his long association with the military as an Army colonel during World War II, heading psychiatry at Ft. Bragg, N.C., and then as chief of psychiatry in the office of the surgeon general. He made important breakthroughs during that time in the study and continuing treatment of war-related psychosis, and remained a psychiatric consultant to the military throughout his career.

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According to Brill, the hospital is not going to be a place where crazy people are locked up until they stop acting crazy, but a place where patients can voluntarily seek help. He also said that the objective of the modern psychiatrist is to help the patient understand the nature and source of his problem so he may better use his intelligence in dealing with it.

Early in his career, Brill practiced privately in New York and Washington, and for two years after the war headed the Georgetown University department of neurology in Washington. During his years in Los Angeles, Brill did research on the expectations and disappointments of men and women concerning marriage, the effects of long-term marijuana use and the use of talk therapy instead of drugs for certain types of mental illness.

The comment was based on a study that Brill and Dr. Ronald R. Koegler had done on 300 Neuropsychiatric Institute outpatients with personality disorders, psychosomatic illnesses and other problems. The doctors published their results in the book “Treatment of Psychiatric Outpatients.”

The UCLA Division of Child Psychiatry was founded in 1955, headed by Henry H. Work, M.D., who left UCLA in 1972 to become Deputy Medical Director of the American Psychiatric Association. The first Director of Training in Child Psychiatry was Justin Call, M.D. James Q. Simmons III, M.D. became the first Child Psychiatry Resident in 1955. In 1962, he joined UCLA faculty as an Assistant Professor and Chief of Children’s Inpatient Services. That same year, he founded a groundbreaking inpatient program for severely mentally disturbed children and adolescents at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute in order to provide comprehensive evaluation and treatment for children and teenagers whose mental disorders were severe enough to warrant hospitalization.

In 1965, George Tarjan, M.D. joined the UCLA NPI-H faculty as the new Director of the Division of Child Psychiatry. Dr. Tarjan was a powerful force in addressing the needs of the developmentally impaired, and so, in order to help the Child Psychiatry program accommodate the ever-increasing need for knowledge and patient facilities, he headed up an expansion of the NPIH building, transforming the facility into a national model for psychiatric care and scientific research.

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These progressive expansions had profound effects on the structure and function of the UCLA Division of Child Psychiatry. The faculty and staff multiplied from 3 to 300, and the focus of the once small division grew to incorporate thirteen distinct disciplines into its training: psychiatry, psychology, pediatrics, social work, occupational therapy, special education, linguistics, nursing, media, administration, dentistry, computer resources, and community liaison. The scientific underpinnings of the division and its training programs became both discipline-specific and interdisciplinary.

As the largest system of public mental health care in the nation, the California Department of Mental Hygiene saw fundamental research as a critical part of the department’s mission. With barely 200 beds at its peak in a California state hospital system of more than 30,000 patients, the NPH was never intended to fulfill a major clinical service need. Instead, it served as a training ground for psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and nurses and, just as importantly, as a source of inspiration for basic and clinical science. Later that decade, the state transferred to UCLA the resources for the operation of the NPI, including teaching support for the NPH.

In 1969, Dr. Louis J. West (“Jolly”) was recruited from the University of Oklahoma to become chair of this young and growing department. Dr. West’s vision of psychiatry was broad, and the department’s name became “Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences.” Dr. West recruited outstanding faculty members from around the world with expertise in basic science, social science, neurobiology, anthropology and numerous other disciplines. Dr. West was renowned for his expertise on cults and the psychological damage they can cause, as well as his expert testimony in the Patricia Hearst trial and his famous experiment administering LSD to Tusko the elephant at the Oklahoma Zoo.

Between 1989 and 1991, Dr. Daniel X. Freedman was Interim Chair of the Department. The department then continued to grow in stature and reputation under the leadership of Dr. Dr. Peter Whybrow served as chair between 1997 and 2020. During Dr. Whybrow’s tenure, a number of additional expansions occurred. A new building for neuroscience and genetics research, the Gonda Goldschmied building, was completed in 1998, and the Neuroscience Research building was completed in 2004.

The Brain Research Institute: A Hub for Neuroscience

The UCLA Brain Research Institute (BRI) was founded in 1959 by Drs. John French, Horace “Tid” Magoun, Donald Lindsley and Charles Sawyer with the purpose of creating a central body responsible for promoting neuroscience as a distinctive, inherently interdisciplinary research endeavor. UCLA had already emerged as a national leader in neuroscience research during the 1950s. Institute co-founder Magoun came to UCLA to head the Department of Anatomy (now Neurobiology). His organizational efforts and research partnerships with other departments attracted prominent new faculty such as Arnold Scheibel and Carmine Clemente who would become central figures in BRI leadership in decades to come.

The first building dedicated to the BRI brought down physical barriers to interdisciplinary collaborations by placing the departments of anatomy, biophysics and nuclear medicine, infectious diseases, neurology, neurosurgery, pathology, pediatrics, pharmacology, physiology chemistry, physiology, psychiatry, psychology and zoology together. At the time, the L-shaped structure formed a bridge between the medical school and the Neuropsychiatric Institute. In 1961, the BRI had 67 members. Thirty years later, with 162 members it became clear that the BRI had outgrown its original space.

Thanks to an unprecedented gift from the Goldschmied family, the Gonda (Goldschmied) Neuroscience and Genetics Research Center was constructed and in 1998 became the new home of the BRI and UCLA’s Department of Human Genetics.The Ahmanson addition to the original BRI building is nearing completion. The building housed facilities for human brain imaging. It underwent many re-configurations and is currently being remodeled as a student learning center. At present, the Brain Research Institute has almost 300 members. In 2016 These faculty published over 1000 research papers in a wide-ranging series of eminent journals. BRI continues to be a magnet for some of the best neuroscience researchers in the world.

The Nathanson Family Resource Center: Supporting Families

Founded by Jane Nathanson and directed by Margaret Stuber, M.D., the Nathanson Family Resource Center, with the help of their advisory board, took the Nathanson’s vision and established itself as a primary resource center in the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. The center offered a reading library, sponsored a community lecture series, provided family education and community services, and housed several support groups for families dealing with mental illness. Over the years, families have continually expressed their gratitude for the utility and accessibility of the Nathanson Family Resource Center.

In 2011, the Nathanson Family Resource Center expanded to bring together a robust portfolio of resilience building programs devoted to our mission of helping families adapt to and overcome challenges. Our services and training programs include a range of successful initiatives for military and veteran families who have negotiated the demands of wartime deployments, combat related mental health challenges, and physical injuries. The resulting UCLA Nathanson Family Resilience Center, with Patricia Lester, M.D.

The Semel Institute and Resnick Hospital: A New Era

In 2004, the Neuropsychiatric Institute was renamed the Jane & Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, in honor of the couple whose philanthropy helps support the institute’s operation (along with state and federal funds).

In 2007, the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital moved into new facilities at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center, again raising the standards of excellence in patient care, education and research. In 2007, the Neuropsychiatric Hospital was renamed the Stewart & Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital and moved into new facilities at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center, again raising the standards of excellence in patient care, education and research. News & World Report ranks UCLA's program at the Resnick Hospital seventh in the nation.

The institute plans to use a $14.9 million stimulus grant to create "The Integrative Phenotyping Center for Neuropsychiatry", a new interdisciplinary research center focused on the role of genetic and environmental factors in neuropsychiatric and behavioral disorders. This center is in the design phase and is expected to be under construction in 2011 and ready for occupancy in late 2012. It will employ around 180 employees and it will be housed in a 33,000-square-foot (3,100 m2) space covering three renovated floors of the current Semel Institute tower. It will use a National Institutes of Health grant, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, for research on autism, attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. The facility will enable large-scale studies, including studies of personality, cognition, and brain activity and structure.

The UCLA Department of Psychiatry, the Semel Neuropsychiatric Institute, and the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital continue to grow, develop and improve within the collegial and multidisciplinary atmosphere of the University of California, Los Angeles. The Department of Psychiatry has drawn more federal, foundation, and private competitive research funding than any other neuropsychiatric institute in the country - approximately $170 million per year.

Dr. Helena Hansen, an M.D.-Ph.D. psychiatrist-anthropologist, is the Interim Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, interim director of the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) at UCLA, and interim physician-in-chief of the Resnick Neuropsychiatric. Dr. Hansen is professor of psychiatry and co-chair of Research Theme in Translational Social Science and Health Equity at DGSOM, as well as associate director of UCLA’s Center for Social Medicine.

Comprehensive Programs and Services

The Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA treats some of the most complex needs across all ages, including aggressive behavior in autistic children, eating disorders in adolescents and the overlap of psychiatric and medical conditions common in older adults. Chief Medical Officer Erick Cheung, MD, said the hospital’s wide-ranging services draw patients from a broad geographic area who, oftentimes, have been turned away from other psychiatric hospitals that lack the resources to treat them.

Dr. Cheung, associate professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said that the breadth and depth of experience that this hospital is offering is virtually unrivaled, and the commitment to not just delivering care, but training more psychiatrists in all these areas, is critical. He also said that when there are unique circumstances - the more complex cases, the really ill patients - it’s clear to us that people get referred here for these situations.

Autism Services and Research

UCLA Health offers comprehensive autism care, including an intensive partial hospitalization program to develop speech, communication and other early intervention skills for young children. The KidsConnect Autism Treatment Program is open to children ages 2 to 5 and meets for six hours a day, five days a week. Participants receive individualized, interdisciplinary treatment to reduce maladaptive behaviors and increase communication and social skills. “Families have told us it is simply life-changing,” Dr. Cheung said.

For inpatient care, Dr. Cheung said many hospitals are not equipped to treat patients with autism, especially those who are minimally verbal and inadvertently use aggressive behaviors to try to get their needs met. UCLA Health psychiatrists also treat people with bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other psychiatric conditions where autism is a complicating factor.

Notably, Dr. Cheung said that have invested in staff who are specially trained in behavior analysis and therapies within a psychiatric hospital, placing it in high demand. Additionally, nursing staff have received special training to care for patients who show aggression, which dropped the need to restrain a patient to almost zero. “Nurses have been trained with new skills and approaches and can follow behavioral treatment plans to reduce maladaptive behaviors,” he said. “That’s a sophisticated undertaking given how many different nurses a patient will see during their hospital stay and our need to deliver consistent behavioral modification.”

UCLA Health’s autism research has a long and prominent history, including the development of the UCLA Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills, or PEERS, which teaches evidence-based concrete social skills for friendship and dating, breaking down complex behaviors into steps. “The PEERS program was developed here by Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson and is now all over the country, and the world for that matter,” Dr. Cheung said.

In 2025, UCLA Health launched a research study called PEERS for Dating to use evidence-based tools to empower adults to navigate the complex social norms around dating and romance. The curriculum includes insight from focus groups and pilot studies, along with dating coaches to help participants apply what they learned in their social circle. “Individuals join workshops and training programs to build socialization skills for dating,” Dr. Cheung said. “They use role-play and have homework to continue practicing skills in the real world.”

Eating Disorders Program

RNPH’s eight-bed inpatient eating disorders unit cares for adolescent patients whose health needs are too severe for standard outpatient or residential settings, a rare subspecialty for psychiatric hospitals. The program closely monitors patients and provides intensive psychotherapy to help them restore necessary eating behavior and weight gain to avoid medical complications. Child and adolescent psychiatrists and psychologists address any co-existing conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and autism.

Dr. Cheung said that sometimes they are too dysregulated to be in a less-restrictive setting, and that they may be suicidal or actively engaging in self-harm. The goal is for patients to improve enough that they can complete treatment in an outpatient setting. Dr. Cheung noted that the average patient stay is 40 days and readmissions are rare.

Geriatric Care

Board-certified geriatric psychiatrists at RNPH care for older adults who may have significant medical problems in addition to psychiatric conditions. Patients have access to UCLA Health cardiologists, neurologists and other medical specialists who can be at the bedside quickly in an emergency. Psychiatric units staffed by trained geriatric psychiatrists are uncommon, particularly as some psychiatric hospitals don’t accept patients older than 65.

Dr. Cheung said that if you are a patient who has a significant psychiatric disease and has a significant medical illness, it is hard to find a place where you can receive really integrated high-quality care, but we are one of them, and that we’re taking care of patients who are challenging to care for in traditional medical or psychiatric hospital settings.

While Americans 65 and older are expected to comprise 20% of the population by 2030, board-certified geriatric psychiatrics make up only 3% of the psychiatric workforce, according to a recent report in Psychiatric Times. Dr. Cheung said UCLA Health is committed to training the next generation of geriatric psychiatrists through its fellowship training program, and that there has to be a commitment by the institution and the academic department. He also said that you have to build and maintain the faculty, curriculum and training sites, and that it’s something that requires a lot of investment and upstart.

Other Unique Services

UCLA Health offers other hard-to-find care, including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). As other programs have stopped providing the resource-intensive treatment, demand remains high for people experiencing life-threatening illnesses such as catatonia and treatment-resistant major depressive disorders.

Dr. Cheung said that they get requests from far and wide, people from all over Los Angeles, from desperate families, desperate hospitals, and that they are among the last providers of ECT in the greater-LA area. At all times, personalized treatment plans and family involvement are cornerstones of care.

Dr. Cheung said that every patient’s unique treatment plan is generated with a multidisciplinary team of psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, occupational therapists, psychologists and behavioralists, and dieticians. The plan is discussed at least weekly with patients to engage them in shared decision-making. Dr. Cheung said psychiatry staff also include family members as advocates for patients, and that their team spends hours throughout the hospital stay, in regular contact with family members who are trying to help their loved ones.

Looking Ahead: Future Developments

In 2026, the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital will move from its current location in Westwood to a new location in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood about six miles east of the university’s main campus. The redesigned structure will be a world-class neuropsychiatric hospital and will include comprehensive behavioral health care services for adult, geriatric, pediatric, and adolescent patients as well as a dedicated area for crisis stabilization services.

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