Revolutionizing How People Get & Stay Mentally Healthy
The mission of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is to transform mental health care and illness prevention in Central Texas and beyond in a culture that supports diversity and inclusion. Working with a wide array of community partners, the team develops clinical, educational and research initiatives that make real differences in people’s lives.
Focus Areas
With partners in the community like Ascension Seton, Integral Care, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, the National Alliance on Mental Illness Austin, Mental Health Texas, the Refuge Ranch for Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking and the Pregnancy and Postpartum Health Alliance of Texas, the department is building scalable models of care to meet the needs of Central Texans. The collaborative care team, an innovative clinical model deployed at UT Health Austin, exemplifies the department’s efforts to provide person-centered mental health care.
The department also partners with the Steve Hicks School of Social Work to facilitate the Institute for Military and Veteran Family Wellness. The institute addresses the unique needs faced by this population through research, training, graduate education and community collaboration.
Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences links and integrates individual research endeavors within the department as well as across Dell Medical School, other schools within The University of Texas at Austin, and indeed the entire University of Texas System, facilitating innovative research collaboration that fosters the career development of faculty and trainees with overlapping interests. Areas of expertise include mood disorders, trauma and stress, addiction, reproductive mental health and health system design.
Education is a critical element to the mission of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Educating, training and inspiring a diverse workforce of physicians and scientists through excellence in medical education is one of the department’s highest priorities. The team works to train the next generation to disseminate innovative care models as widely as possible.
The department also plays a key role in reimagining the entire continuum of care for brain health as part of the Austin State Hospital redesign led by Dell Medical School in partnership with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences collaborates with the Mulva Clinic for the Neurosciences and is home to the the Center for Youth Mental Health and the Institute for Early Life Adversity Research.
As a member of the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium, Dell Medical School is committed to increasing access to clinical care for the youth of Central Texas. The department is a hub for the Child Psychiatry Access Network and Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine initiatives.
Division of Psychology
The Division of Psychology has a robust clinical, educational and research profile. The division hosts interdisciplinary mental health training programs, including the Integrated Behavioral Health Scholars Program and a Graduate Portfolio in Integrated Behavioral Health facilitated by the Graduate School at The University of Texas at Austin. The division also sponsors the Predoctoral Internship in Pediatric and Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and the Postdoctoral Fellowship in Pediatric Psychology, in collaboration with Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas.