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Dr Rachel E. Menzies

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST

BPsych (Hons I), MClin Psych, PhD, MAPS

Dr Rachel E. Menzies is a clinical psychologist and founder of the Menzies Anxiety Centre.

She is a member of the Australian Psychological Society, and is also a Board-approved supervisor.

In addition to her clinical work, Rachel is a Research Fellow and Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney, where she continues to conduct research into death anxiety, mental health conditions and their treatment.

Rachel completed her Honours degree in psychology at the University of Sydney, winning the Dick Thompson Thesis Prize for her work on death anxiety and its relationship with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Rachel completed her Masters of Clinical Psychology and her PhD at the University of Sydney. She was awarded the 2021 national Australian Psychological Society (APS) Award for Excellent PhD Thesis, for her research on death anxiety, its role in mental illness, and its treatment. In 2023, she was awarded the national APS Early Career Research Award.

Rachel has extensive experience in treating death anxiety using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Rachel has delivered workshops on death anxiety and its relation to anxiety and mood disorders across 7 Australian cities, in a 2019 national tour hosted by the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy (AACBT). She regularly delivers workshops on death anxiety to various national and international organisations.

Rachel is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for the Science of Existential Psychology, and is a member of the AACBT NSW Committee. She also serves on the editorial board of the international journal Death Studies.

In addition to her peer-reviewed journal publications on the topic of death anxiety, Rachel’s research on existential issues has been featured in numerous books. She was featured in The Conversation Yearbook 2016, a collection of the top 1% of ‘standout articles from Australia’s top thinkers’.

Rachel is the lead editor of the book Curing the Dread of Death: Theory, Research and Practice, published in 2018. In 2019, she released her second book: Tales from the Valley of Death: Reflections from Psychotherapy on the Fear of Death.

In 2021, Rachel released Mortals: How the Fear of Death Shaped Human Society, which was awarded the 2022 Nib People’s Choice Prize, and the 2023 American Psychological Association (APA) William James Book Award.

In 2022, she released two further books: Free Yourself from Death Anxiety: A CBT Self-Help Guide for a Fear of Death and Dying, and Existential Concerns and Cognitive-Behavioral Procedures: An Integrative Approach to Mental Health.

Treatment Areas

Rachel is an experienced practitioner who has worked in both hospital and community-based services. Rachel re-developed the mood and anxiety program at Wesley Mission Hospital, where she also developed the Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) program. 

In addition to her extensive research investigating death anxiety, Rachel also has experience working with a number of issues, including:

  • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

  • Depression

  • Social anxiety

  • Panic Disorder

  • Phobias

  • Generalised Anxiety Disorder

  • Health anxiety

  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

  • Substance use and addiction

  • Relationship concerns

  • Adjustment to illness

Publications