UC Irvine Giving Day

This Giving Day, please consider a gift to the Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior. Your gift today will support two of our top priorities.

REPRODUCTIVE PSYCHIATRY CLINIC

Pregnancy and the postpartum period should be filled with hope. But for many individuals, this time is overshadowed by depression, anxiety, trauma and other mental health challenges. Perinatal mental health disorders are common and when untreated, they can have devastating consequences for mothers and their babies.

No parent should have to suffer in silence during one of life’s most vulnerable moments.

To meet this urgent need, Dr. Alexis Seegan and Dr. Katy Lunny, in partnership with UCI Health OB/GYN colleagues, have launched a dedicated Perinatal Psychiatry Clinic within the Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior. This specialized clinic provides compassionate, evidence-based care for patients who are pregnant, postpartum or planning pregnancy, including those with preexisting mental health conditions and those experiencing new-onset symptoms during or after pregnancy.

Our mission is simple but powerful: identify risk early, provide expert treatment and change the trajectory for families.

But we cannot do this alone.

Philanthropic support fuels the growth of this program, expanding access to care, supporting medication management during pregnancy and breastfeeding and building a future where comprehensive psychiatric care spans the entire reproductive lifespan, from menarche to menopause.

Your Giving Day gift directly supports mothers, babies and families during their most critical moments.

Because when we invest in a mother's health, we invest in generations to come. 

INTERVENTIONAL PSYCHIATRY PROGRAM

Expanding Access to Advanced Psychiatric Care

Our program provides coordinated, evidence-based treatments for individuals with severe, complex or difficult to treat psychiatric illness. The program offers the rapid acting antidepressant, esketamine, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), as well as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), allowing patients and referring providers a single point of access for comprehensive evaluation and treatment planning across interventional modalities.

Esketamine treatment, overseen by Dr. Adrian Preda, provides an FDA-approved, rapidly-acting option for treatment-resistant depression and acute suicidality. TMS services, provided by Dr. Lydia Ann and Dr. Gemma Espejo, offer a noninvasive neuromodulation approach that can be personalized to each patient, with individualized targeting and treatment parameters to optimize outcomes while minimizing side effects.  The ECT service, led by Dr. Seegan, delivers a highly effective and well-established treatment for severe mood disorders, psychotic illness and other refractory psychiatric conditions.

Through centralized evaluation, the Interventional Psychiatry Program aims to increase access to these evidence-based treatments, offering meaningful alternatives and augmentation strategies for pharmacotherapy. The program emphasizes individualized care, close collaboration with referring clinicians and the integration of research and cutting-edge clinical innovation to advance psychiatric treatment.

As the program continues to develop, philanthropic support is critical. Your gift will help expand access, support specialized staff and technology and advance research that brings innovative treatments to patients who need them most. Together, we can broaden access to life-changing care and shape the future of interventional psychiatry at UCI Health.

A gift of any amount is vital to the success of our department. Thank you in advance for supporting the Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior.