Spectrum Personality Disorder Service for Victoria is the Statewide Centre of Clinical Excellence for Personality Disorders. It was established by the Victorian Health Department in 1999 and is managed by Eastern Health.
Mental Health Clinicians and people with lived experience (including Spectrum staff and consumers), have expressed a diverse range of views about the diagnosis of personality disorder. Spectrum participates in, and contributes to, many discussions surrounding this issue, and will continue to do so. We don’t seek to impose one perspective (hence our name 'Spectrum'), and recognise that any choice of language will resonate for some people, and not for others.
Spectrum supports and works with local Area Mental Health Services (AMHS) and health professionals to provide treatment for people aged 16-64 who are assessed as having, or who have a personality disorder. We particularly focus on those who are at risk from serious self-harm or suicide and who have complex needs.
Our Annual Report
The Annual report looks back on some of Spectrum’s achievements over the year.
2022
Annual Report 2022 - Plain Text Accessible Version (DOC, 32KB)
2021
Annual Report 2021 - Plain Text Accessible Version (DOC, 40KB)
2020
Annual Report 2020 (PDF, 4.2MB)
Annual Report 2020 - Plain Text Accessible Version (DOC, 42KB)
2019
Our strategic directions
Strategic Directions 2019-2024 (PDF, 445KB)
Our staff
Spectrum is staffed by a dedicated team of mental health professionals from a range of disciplines including psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, and peer workers.
Our aims
Spectrum was established with two main aims:
- to provide support to Victorian Area Mental Health Service (AMHS) as they move towards new treatment strategies
- to provide specialised intensive assessment and treatment services for clients with particularly complex needs.
What we do
Spectrum provides leadership in the application of evidence-based best practice around treatment and recovery from personality disorders.
Spectrum offers a range of services including:
- Specialist treatment to the small number of people for whom a specialist service is most appropriate. Over many years, we have developed expertise in treating people with personality disorders, especially BPD. This expertise includes working with people with complex care needs, working with significant clinical risk, as well as offering treatment in several evidence-based approaches.
- Training of mental health professionals
- Secondary consultations to other service providers to enable them to support people with personality disorders. (When supported, skilled service providers outside of Spectrum can offer the vast majority of services).
- Face-to-face psycho-education and support for people with personality disorders and their families and friends. We also have some capacity to support other services to offer such resources.
- Sector leadership to enhance supports for people with personality disorders.
- Research into personality disorders to help inform and develop best practice
- Advocacy for the needs of Victorians with personality disorder, their families and carers, and for improved resourcing of the mental health system that provides treatment and support.