The Women's Mental Health Clinic provides medical, psychiatric consultation services, offering second opinions about new treatments for women experiencing a range of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar affective disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, menopause depression and menstrual-cycle related depression and anxiety.  

 

The clinic operates on the principle of empowering our women clients, providing lengthy consultations in which we attend to her physical health and mental health issues.  We use a biopsychosocial or holistic approach to support women and their families, as well as providing an information and education service for the woman’s treating clinicians.  Importantly, we provide each woman with the same letter and reading material that we send to her referring doctor, so that she is empowered to follow up on our management suggestions with her primary treating team.  We also encourage women to involve family members and friends in the consultations so that an inclusive education process is undertaken and each woman feels adequately supported.  

 

The Women’s Mental Health Clinic is the only general women’s mental health clinic in Australia- where hormone impacts, trauma and other factors are discussed in detail.  We take great pride in helping women struggling with mental illness, who have not found that standard treatments have led to good recovery so far.  We are proud to make a positive impact in women’s lives and our research findings often form the basis for our new treatment approaches.  In this way the clinic is a Research Translational Clinic, where new approaches informed by research are offered.  The women’s opinions about treatment plus their own observations inform current and future research.  

 

The Women’s Mental Health Clinic formally opened in 2011 with Professor Kulkarni being the only clinicians.  In response to major growth in patient demand, the service expanded and is also staffed with other psychiatrists, psychiatry registrars, medical students, and on occasion- international visiting psychiatrists.  

 

Feedback from women attending our Clinic has been excellent.  Overall, their feedback details huge appreciation of our unique approach that brings together an understanding of mental health with physical health and brain chemistry, especially in the context of hormone and trauma related issues for women.