A new mental health centre is launching today in Melbourne that will focus on the unique aspects of mental illness that can occur over the course of a woman’s life.
HER Centre Australia – HER stands for Health, Education and Research – will undertake research, provide treatment and improve awareness of women’s mental health issues occurring at all ages.
Improving outcomes for women’s health is at the top of their priority since, unfortunately, women experience nearly twice as much depression as men, four times as much anxiety and 12 times the rate of eating disorders.
The Centre will cover a range of conditions affecting women such as menopause, menstrual cycle-related mood disorders, complex PTSD, eating disorders, family violence body dysmorphic disorder and postpartum depression.
Speaking on HER Centre’s importance, its Director, Professor Jayashri Kulkani AM said that women’s mental health problems have gone underdiagnosed, and sometimes unrecognised, for far too long.
Herself and her team have been working in women’s mental health for decades, and she says the pandemic has exacerbated mental health issues for many women.
“Whether it’s debilitating periods or depression during menopause, too many women have been told to grin and bear it as those crushing emotions are ‘simply nature taking its course,” Kulkani says. “What we now know is, and science has told us, that many women of all ages are living with mental illness that may be related to female hormones and/or other unique parts of their biology.”
In an effort to address these mental health care inequalities, health professionals and researchers at HER Centre Australia will work to develop world-first-gender-tailored treatments and interventions to treat women at its clinic.
These treatments and interventions will follow more than 30 years of Monash University-led research through the Alfred Hospital’s Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre (MAPrc).
The HER Centre’s official launch will take place at a free public lecture at the Melbourne Town Hall and will feature HER Centre Director and Head of the Department of Psychiatry at Monash University, Professor Jayashri Kulkarni AM, HER Centre Deputy Director Associate Professor Caroline Gurvich, mother of three with lived experience of mental illness Mariska Meldrum, and media presenter Jo Stanley.
Speakers will share key insights on the challenges that women face at all life stages and how the centre’s tailored interventions and treatments will transform women’s mental health.
Many women have to navigate unique environmental factors like violence, power imbalance, lower wages and negative cultural expectations, adding to the complex interaction of biological, psychological and social factors involved in women’s mental health. HER Centre Australia says that treatments for conditions such as depression, anxiety, trauma disorders, addictions and self-harm are tailored to women’s needs.
They plan to take a lead in new treatments such as cannabis oil, if they’re proven to be effective, and clinical trials are underway that are treating women with new forms of oestrogen while educating health professionals on the matter.
Other big research happening at HER Centre includes hormone-based treatments for women with menopausal depression. The Centre will be offering courses for health professionals on this issue, along with period depression.
“A woman can experience pre-menstrual or menopause-related depression that is as serious as any other type of depression. Yet it can be easily written off as part of a ‘normal’ hormonal cycle,” says Kulkarni. “At its worst, such conditions can lead to serious mental illness or even suicide without the true cause being identified. This is a national- and international- tragedy.”
Kulkarni adds that “the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) still has no definitive condition called menopausal depression.”
“We also need to better understand pre and antenatal depression, which affects many women,” she says. “HER Australia is committed to being a leader in women’s mental health.”