Department of Psychological Medicine

Te Tari Whakaora Hinengaro Tangata

Nau mai, haere mai

Staff in the Department of Psychological Medicine are very enthusiastic about research, teaching and clinical practice.

Our core academic staff includes award-winning psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, a clinical neuropsychologist, social scientists, behaviour change researchers, nurses and service user academics. In addition, our Clinical Senior Lecturer team includes clinicians from across 4 District Health Boards: Hutt Valley, Capital and Coast, Midcentral, and Hawkes Bay.

Our academics are passionate about what they do, with an extensive research programme relating to themes relevant to mental health practice in Aotearoa New Zealand. These themes include:

Physical health of people with mental illness, including obesity and sleep
Mental health service delivery and evaluation, including in primary care and secondary care
The interface between psychological and physical health
Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology
Suicide
Service user-led and co-produced research and teaching
Personality and its role in mental illness
Education in the clinical professions
Addictions
Mental health law
Stigma and discrimination

We take pride in our undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programmes. Undergraduate medical students receive mental health teaching in all three clinical years they spend at the University of Otago, Wellington. We provide a range of postgraduate courses, including the seminar series for doctors training in psychiatry to become fellows of RANZCP (registrars).

Read more about our work in our 2020 Annual Report:

Department of Psychological Medicine 2020 Annual Report (PDF)