Dr. Christian Schütz

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Primary research areas

• Substance use disorders
• Dual diagnoses
• Neurobiological and neurocognitive aspects of impulsive decision making

About Christian G. Schütz, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., FRCPC

• Investigator, BC Mental Health and Substance Use Services Research Institute
• Research and Education Medical Manager, θəqiʔ ɫəwʔənəq leləm’ (Red Fish Healing Centre for Mental Health and Addiction)
• Professor and Scientist, Department of Psychiatry and Centre for Health Evaluation & Outcome Sciences, the University of British Columbia (UBC)
• Member, UBC Institute of Mental Health
• Member, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health
• Member, UBC Neuroscience and the Experimental Medicine program

Dr. Schütz is a clinical researcher and practicing psychiatrist whose research focuses on understanding relapse and impulsive decision-making mechanisms to improve the treatment of addiction and concurrent disorders.

Current projects include ROAR (Reducing Overdose and Relapse) Canada. The large-scale study seeks to follow up with patients in the mental health disorders system to gauge the effectiveness of treatment. Dr. Schütz and his colleagues began studying at the Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addiction, simultaneously with a treatment facility in Hamilton, Ontario.

“We are conducting interviews with patients and also pulling out data from the charts,” Dr. Schütz says. “We will then complement this information with administrative data so we can see how they were doing before they came to Burnaby Centre, how much time they spent in emergency rooms, and how much time they have spent in hospital and compare that to the two years they have been at the Burnaby Centre, and after.”

In addition, Dr. Schütz looks at cue reduction and researches how triggers induce relapses. “As an addiction psychiatrist, one of the big questions is, ‘what can we do to reduce relapses?’ So it’s important to understand what makes people relapse. Why, when people are stressed, are they more likely to relapse? What drives impulsivity within the context of addiction?”

Dr. Schütz’s training and research background is in epidemiology and preclinical and clinical behavioural pharmacology. He obtained his MD from the University of Freiburg and his Ph.D. from Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich.

A Fogerty Fellowship at the Intramural Research Program of the NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) complemented his clinical training. A psychiatric residency at LMU was followed by a fellowship in clinical neuroscience at Yale University. He also worked as an Oberarzt (attending psychiatrist and lecturer) in the Department of Psychiatry at Bonn University, where his responsibilities included patient care, teaching, and research. In 2008, he joined the faculty of the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Schütz has published over 140 research articles and a dozen chapters.