Gordon Parker is Scientia Professor of
PsychiatryPsychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
at the
University of New South WalesThe University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
, specializing in clinical research in mental health in particular depression & bipolar disorder.
Professor Parker has an MB BS
SydThe University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
and a MD 1978, PhD 1983, DSc 1997 from UNSW and is a FRANZCP On 14 June 2010, Professor Parker became an Officer of the Order of Australia.
He is the Executive Director of the
Black Dog InstituteThe Black Dog Institute is an educational, research and clinical facility offering specialist expertise in mood disorders in Australia - a range of disorders that include depression and bipolar disorder . The Institute is attached to the Prince of Wales Hospital and affiliated with the University...
, an organization based at the
Prince of Wales HospitalThe Prince of Wales Hospital is a major public teaching hospital located in Sydney's eastern suburb of Randwick, providing a full range of hospital services to the people of New South Wales, Australia...
in
RandwickRandwick is a suburb in south-eastern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Randwick is located 6 kilometres south-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the City of Randwick...
, New South Wales, that focuses on the treatment of mood disorders, in particular
clinical depressionMajor depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
and
bipolar disorderBipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
.. While he was director of the Black Dog Institute, the Institute told at least one person who approached it for help with depression "no, we can't help you". It is not known how many other people suffering depression were summarily rejected while Mr Parker was director.
Past positions have included:
- Head, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
, 1983-2002
- Director of Division of Psychiatry, Prince of Wales Hospital
The Prince of Wales Hospital is a major public teaching hospital located in Sydney's eastern suburb of Randwick, providing a full range of hospital services to the people of New South Wales, Australia...
and Prince Henry Hospital
- Part-time Research Director, Institute of Mental Health (Singapore), 1998-2002
- Member, International Advisory Board of the DSM-IV Task Force for Mood Disorders, and Personality Disorders
- Member NSW Guardianship Board, and NSW Administrative Appeals Tribunal
Professor Parker is a leading critic of the current unitary classification of major depressive disorder in the current DSM IV-TR paradigm, and has proposed the revival of the old diagnosis of
melancholiaMelancholia , also lugubriousness, from the Latin lugere, to mourn; moroseness, from the Latin morosus, self-willed, fastidious habit; wistfulness, from old English wist: intent, or saturnine, , in contemporary usage, is a mood disorder of non-specific depression,...
. Professor Parker is the Peer Review Consultant to The Lawson Clinic, an independent world first depression & bipolar clinic which has adopted the Black Dog Institute's sub-typing Model of Depression.
External links