Our mission is to advance and promote mental health and well-being in our communities through advocacy, education, research, scholarship, and compassionate high-quality clinical care. We achieve these goals through our collaborations at The Robert Larner, M.D., College of Medicine, the University of Vermont Health Network, the State of Vermont, and around the world.
We are proud of our rich tradition in training residents, child and adolescent psychiatry fellows, graduate students and post-docs, medical students, psychology students, and nursing students. A culture of curiosity and learning is evident in all our academic activities, from core medical student rotations to departmental conferences to resident seminars.
Our department has substantial depth in four research areas: substance use, child psychopathology, development across the lifespan, and neuroimaging. Our addiction research focuses on the behavioral and biological basis of substance use; novel treatments; and the support of providers who treat substance use disorder. This is supported by center grants that established the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health and The UVM Center on Rural Addiction.
Research in child psychopathology has produced the internationally recognized Child Behavior Check List and the Vermont Family-Based Approach. Our developmental neurosciences group is making new discoveries daily through participation in the national ABCD and HBCD studies and others. Research in geriatric psychiatry investigates the neurobiology of aging and the effects of hormones on cognition.
We provide clinical care in a variety of settings. Multidisciplinary child, adult, and geriatric psychiatry along with our psychology clinical teams evaluate and treat patients of all ages in our outpatient clinics. Our Inpatient Psychiatry Units at UVMMC and CVPH accept both voluntary and involuntary admissions. The Psychiatric Consultation Service cares for medical and surgical patients that need our expertise, while our emergency psychiatry services cover acute needs. Our Primary Care/Mental Health Integration Team collaborates within primary care so that care can be received easily and efficiently. Seneca Center offers group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in three levels of treatment: a Partial Hospital Program, an Intensive Outpatient Program, and Mood and Anxiety Clinic. The Addiction Treatment Center integrates comprehensive individual and family treatment of substance use disorders with practices derived from intensive research.
In all, through our shared values of Compassion, Humility, Fairness, and Curiosity we aim to move closer to our departmental vision of Thriving communities with improved mental health and access to state-of-the-art care.
Please take a look at the wonderful things our department has to offer.
Robert Althoff, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor and Chair of Psychiatry