The Black Dog Institute is an educational, research and clinical facility offering specialist expertise in mood disorders in Australia - a range of disorders that include depression and bipolar disorder (formerly called 'manic depression'). The Institute is attached to the Prince of Wales Hospital and affiliated with the University of New South Wales. The Institute was formally launched in February 2002 and builds on the work of its predecessor, the Mood Disorders Unit, established 17 years earlier as a state-wide clinical research facility. The Institute's mission is to advance the understanding, diagnosis and management of depression and bipolar disorder by continuously raising clinical, research, education and training standards. In so doing, the Institute aims to improve the lives of those affected - and in turn - the lives of their families and friends.[1]
The Black Dog Institute is a significant critic of the DSM-IV major depression classification to diagnosing and treating depressive illness.The Black Dog Institute believes this severity-based approach is impractical both in theory and practice and is rarely used in other disciplines. An alternative hierarchical model has been developed at the Black Dog Institute which assumes there are three subtypes to depression, psychotic depression, melancholic depression and non-melancholic depression. Application of this model is said to lead to better detection and care for mood disorders and more specific treatment strategies being offered to patients.[2]. Of significance, The Black Dog Institute's hierarchical model has been adopted beyond the Institute in Sydney by the Lawson Clinic, an independent group of psychiatrists sub-specializing in depression and bipolar disorder.[3]