Robert Maunder
Interim Chief, Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Hospital
We study the impact of trauma, stress and personal relationships on health. Our work focusses on three powerful determinants of physical and mental health that are often overlooked in disease models. The first of these concerns how trauma and adversity experienced during childhood influence lifelong physical health. The second is how experiences in close personal relationships influence health and health care relationships. The third is how the stress of working in the health care system affects health-care providers, and the quality of care that they provide.
These three areas of investigation overlap and interact and are linked by the idea that much of healthcare is relational, such that “health happens between people.”
Understanding health through a relational lens opens new opportunities to improve health by improving patient and health-care provider relationships and fortifying the well-being of health-care providers.
Working with our main collaborator, Dr. Jon Hunter, we have provided accessible guides to this work in three books published by the University of Toronto Press: Love, Fear and Health; Damaged-Childhood Trauma, Adult Illness and the Need for a Healthcare Revolution; and Coping.
Email: [email protected]
Room 915, 600 University Avenue
Toronto, M5G 1X5
Website: Attachment and Health
Publications: PubMed
Google Scholar: Robert Maunder
ORCID: 0000-0001-9309-3899
Sinai Health Physician Profile: Robert Maunder
LinkedIn: Robert Maunder
Bluesky: @boiby.bsky.social
Instagram: @rgmaunder
- 2025–present; Interim Psychiatrist-in-Chief, Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Hospital, Sinai Health, Toronto
- 2018–present; Chair in Health and Behavior, Sinai Health, Toronto
- 2018–present; Vice Chair, Research Ethics Board
- 2015–present; Senior Clinician Scientist, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health, Toronto
- 2014–present; Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto
- 2012–present; Head of Research, Department of Psychiatry, Sinai Health, Toronto
- 2011–present; Editorial Board, General Hospital Psychiatry
- 2010–present; Full Member, Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Toronto
- 2004–present; Member, Research Ethics Board
- 1994–present; Staff Psychiatrist, Sinai Health, Toronto
Former appointments
- 2021–2023; Mental Health Working Group, Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table
- 2017–2024; Deputy Psychiatrist-in-Chief, Department of Psychiatry, Sinai Health, Toronto
- MD, University of Toronto, Toronto; 1984
- 2024 – International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation Pierre Janet Writing Award
- 2023 – Annual Distinguished Speaker, Factor Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, Alumni Association Annual Distinguished Speakers Series
- 2013 – Ted Freedman Award for Innovation in Education
Notable publications
Scientific Reports, 2024
General Hospital Psychiatry, 2023
Psychodynamic Psychiatry, 2022
Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table (OCSAT), 2021
BMJ Open, 2016
Join our team
Visit our job board to see research positions.