Gordon Parker

Who is Gordon Parker?

Gordon Parker is Scientia Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales, specializing in clinical research in mental health in particular depression & bipolar disorder.

Professor Parker has an MB BS Syd 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 Founder of the Black Dog Institute, an organization based at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, New South Wales, that focuses on the treatment of mood disorders, in particular clinical depression and bipolar disorder.

Past positions have included:

Head, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, 1983-2002

Director of Division of Psychiatry, Prince of Wales Hospital and Prince Henry Hospital

Part-time Research Director, Institute of Mental Health, 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 melancholia. 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.