Dr Somya Pandey

Dr Pandey has worked in UK inpatient psychiatry since 2023, across autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability (ASD/ID) wards and general adult acute services. In 2026 she began working in ASD/ID open rehabilitation and extended packages of care for people with autism and intellectual disability who have highly complex needs.

Somya has a special interest in neurodivergence, and in how services can better understand and support neurodivergent people. Having been diagnosed with AuDHD herself in early 2026, she brings lived experience alongside clinical insight to her work and writing on the subject. She is a member of Cygnet’s disABILITY Network.

She is also passionate about staff wellbeing, with a particular interest in burnout, including its clinical presentation, detection, prevention and treatment. She is involved in two research projects at her site: one on staff wellbeing and another exploring the use of virtual reality for relaxation with patients. She co-founded and co-chairs L.E.A.D. (Live, Explore, Advance, Discover), the hospital’s Research and Quality Improvement committee, and is pursuing her own quality improvement projects on site.

Somya is interested in bridging science and spirituality, and in exploring how healing practices, currently considered alternative modalities, might sit alongside medicine and mental health care. Her interest comes partly from her own lived experience: after experiencing depression during medical school, she worked on her own healing through these modalities, learning them both for herself and to help others, working alongside her teachers and continuing to grow. She has a keen interest in psychotherapy and is trained in life coaching and as a cognitive hypnotic coach and psychotherapist.

She also has a special interest in the wider determinants of health, the social, economic and environmental factors such as housing, income, education and employment that shape people’s mental and physical wellbeing, and is building her understanding of this area through the current literature.

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