MindSpot is a digital mental health service for adults who are experiencing difficulties with anxiety, stress, depression, chronic pain and low mood. It is the first of its kind in Australia.
Our experienced team comprises mental health professionals including psychologists, clinical psychologists and psychiatrists. They are passionate about providing evidence-based mental health care to people all over Australia.
MindSpot provides assessment and treatment services to some 25,000 patients, delivered online each year.
The clinic is fully funded by the Australian Government, under the Department of Health – meaning that the service is free for all Australian adults.
At MindSpot, our clinicians and researchers:
Through our clinics, we continue to evaluate and ensure that the services developed in the research environment translate well into clinical practice for better health outcomes.
Mindspot's journey began around 15 years ago, after recognising large numbers of people were struggling with depression and anxiety, but unable to access treatments. A lot of the barriers to access were around stigma, shame, expense, accessibility and geography.
Our team began to explore the possibility of delivering interventions via the internet and initiated a small number of clinical trials. After achieving excellent results and engaged consumers, Macquarie University won a competitive tender with the Australian Government, to deliver a translational research project and establish a clinic to expand the reach of virtual treatments. The project — called MindSpot — was one of three main components of the eMental Health Strategy for Australia.
Today, we have conducted 85 clinical trials with 9000 people. Our teams have worked with different populations of consumers, from those with complex PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) to those with chronic pain conditions, from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.
Internationally recognised for our scientific rigour in developing and evaluating virtual treatments for mental health conditions, MindSpot's interventions have been translated into Arabic, Chinese and French.
The MindSpot team is currently developing interventions that target a range of chronic health conditions, as well as insomnia, cancer, terminal conditions and neurological conditions. We know that looking after our mental health is an important part of managing significant physical health conditions.
Another study we're conducting involves looking at the everyday activities people do that can help maintain good mental health.
We aim to demystify mental health and the specific activities we should do every day and week to stay mentally well.
We're also conducting a series of meta-analyses looking at the success rate of internet treatment and outcomes from different populations.
Additionally, we’re also conducting several economic evaluations of internet-delivered treatments for people with mental health and physical health difficulties.
In collaboration with overseas colleagues who are running mental health clinics, we share our interventions and experience, in an effort to support them in their efforts to increase access to care in their countries.
MindSpot clinicians are in the process of developing a dedicated training academy that will ensure we can train the next generation of health professionals according to best practice standards and methodologies.
Through our academy, we will teach and train junior interns and recent graduates across the country in the coming years.
Associate Professor Blake Dear is co-director of Macquarie University’s not-for-profit eCentreClinic, the psychology research unit that came up with a new online pain course as part of its role to develop and evaluate treatments for common health co...
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