Department of Psychiatry

We are a team of highly experienced clinicians, master teachers and expert scientists. Our collective mission is to provide optimal clinical services, conduct excellent teaching and training, and perform cutting-edge research by adhering to our values of integrity, excellence and innovation. We are committed to improving the mental health of South Africans through a holistic clinical and basic neuroscience lens. We have developed outstanding research partnerships, both local and international, and continue to seek out partnerships in our pursuit of discovery. We run several thriving research programmes focused on anxiety disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, fetal alcohol syndrome, neurodegenerative disorders, neuroAIDS, substance abuse, and the intersection of psychiatric and other non-communicable diseases, directly seeking to address multiple disease burdens in South Africa. Further, the Department is home to two South African Medical Research Council research units - the MRC Risk and Resilience in Mental Disorders Unit and the Genomics of Brain Disorders Unit - and the South African Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Programme of Excellence.