Vivian Polak
Assistant Clinical Professor (Adjunct), Psychiatry & Behavioural Neurosciences

Dr. Vivian Polak is a Psychiatrist and Assistant Clinical Professor (Adjunct) at McMaster University with subspecialty training in perinatal mental health. She has a focus in treating mental health disorders in women (and men) during pregnancy and the first year after delivery. She graduated from the University of Alberta School of Medicine in Edmonton, then completed Psychiatry Residency at Dalhousie University in Halifax. She spent five years in Vancouver, first completing subspecialty training in Reproductive Psychiatry at British Columbia's provincial Reproductive Mental Health Program and then working there as staff. Dr. Polak moved to Ontario in 2011, and while living in a small community north of the tricities, she uses OTN (Ontario Telemedicine Network) exclusively for various purposes: seeing patients by telemedicine; eConsult; teaching medical trainees, physicians, nurse practitioners, midwives, and therapists; and for CME.

Dr. Polak travels to other communities to train other therapists and mental health workers in Interpersonal Psychotherapy, a first-line validated psychotherapy for perinatal depression. She encourages a multi-modal, whole person approach to treating psychiatric disorders. She employs mindfulness and evidence-based psychotherapies to improve the emotional health and relationships of her patients, while promoting sound lifestyle habits such as evidence-based whole food plant based nutrition, exercise, sleep and other sound options to optimise overall physical and mental health.