Psychiatry & mental health
Understanding, diagnosing, treating and preventing mental illness
Psychiatry is the field of medicine that’s concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental illness. Psychiatrists work with people affected by a range of mental disorders - they’re employed in various health settings including hospitals, private practice, community health teams and other organisations. Psychiatry is taught to medical students at UNSW at the undergraduate level and is later an area of medical specialisation taught to qualified doctors at the postgraduate level.
The Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health at UNSW is very active in research and includes staff from a wide range of disciplines (e.g., neuroscientists, epidemiologists, psychologists, social workers) all working together to address complex research problems. Current areas of research in psychiatry and mental health at UNSW include depressive and bipolar disorders, anxiety disorders, neuropsychiatry, old age psychiatry, schizophrenia, child and adolescent psychiatry, forensic psychiatry, post-natal disorders, psychoneuroimmunology, intellectual disability and mental health, workplace mental health, trauma and mental health, migration/asylum seeking and mental health, transcultural mental health, psychiatric genetics, neurostimulation, neuroimaging, social psychiatry and epidemiology.
Studying psychiatry at UNSW
UNSW's Medicine & Health faculty is ranked #54 globally for life sciences and medicine (QS World University Rankings by Subject, 2025) and is creating the leaders of tomorrow. UNSW Psychiatry and Mental Health represents one of the leading university research groups in the field internationally. The discipline receives considerable research funds from a wide range of external funding bodies, industry partners and philanthropic endeavours.
Research collaborations are also active with a number of external research centres and affiliated medical research institutes, including the Black Dog Institute, opens in a new window, Ingham Institute, opens in a new window, Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), opens in a new window and Mindgardens Neuroscience Network, opens in a new window.
Prepare for career success
There's a growing need for a skilled workforce in psychiatry and mental health, both in Australia and internationally. In addition to psychiatry and mental health teaching at undergraduate level for medical students, a postgraduate program in the subspecialist field of forensic mental health can unlock professional career opportunities across a variety of settings, including secure mental health units, prison settings, legal settings and private practice. This postgraduate program is open to mental health professionals, lawyers, criminologists and those working in other justice settings.