Dr Mark Cross | Everand

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Dr Mark Cross

Doctor Mark Cross, a face and warm personality known to many through the award-winning ABC TV series CHANGING MINDS, knows a lot about anxiety. He sees a huge number of patients with it - anxiety d...view moreDoctor Mark Cross, a face and warm personality known to many through the award-winning ABC TV series CHANGING MINDS, knows a lot about anxiety. He sees a huge number of patients with it - anxiety disorders affect up to 14 per cent of the Australian population, and that is just the figure for those with a medical diagnosis, so we can safely assume that many more people suffer this condition without having sought or received a diagnosis. Anxiety is, in fact, the most common mental health condition in Australia. Up to one-third of women and one-fifth of men will experience anxiety at some point in their lives. But Mark also knows about anxiety from another perspective - it's a mental illness he's dealt with all his life. While dealing with mental illness and emerging sexuality, Mark completed his medical training in his home country of South Africa, where he helped open a 16-bed mental illness ward, the first of its kind to be open to all races in South Africa. Moving to London in the late 1990s, he undertook specialist training including setting up a psychiatric consultation service to a hospital HIV department, another breakthrough. In 2005 he moved to Australia, taking up a position at Liverpool Hospital, initially as Director of Consultation-Liaison, then for nine years as Clinical Director, after which he was the senior psychiatrist at one of Sydney's few public youth psychiatric wards before moving full-time to the Northside group in May 2016. He has been involved with foundations including Bobby Goldsmith and more recently SANE Australia, for which he is currently a director. Now in private practice and teaching, Mark specialises in treating young people, complex PTSD, women's mental health and LGBT people. Mark has created a caring career and helped break down the dangerous public stigma around mental illness, including helping develop and lead the landmark ABC TV series CHANGING MINDS. Along the way he has made a flourishing family in his very own way.view less