Doctor Hazel Claire Weekes MBE (11 April 1903 – 2 June 1990) was an Australian general practitioner and health writer; she also had an early career as a research scientist working in the field of comparative reproduction.

[2] Weekes was concerned with the severe long-term effects anxiety and panic disorders had on the lives of her patients as well as the high failure of typical psychiatric treatments, especially psychoanalysis, which many sufferers had tried.

[3] She was critical both of Freudian approaches and of attempts by behaviorists to "desensitize" their patients using relaxation and breathing techniques.

Eventually, she developed a self-help pack consisting of a book and tape, with Weekes guiding patients through the program.

She has summarized this program as follows; facing the feared situation, accepting the feeling of panic, floating through it, and letting time pass.

In 1983, Dr. Weekes was interviewed in a series of six talks, called Peace From Nervous Suffering, on the British national TV program Pebble Mill at One, in which she explained her techniques.

Weekes described her own battle with nervous illness in her final book in which she explained how she began suffering from anxiety.

"[9] Weekes' early work on the subject of reproduction and placentation in reptiles is held in high regard and is often cited by researchers in the field.

Initially working under Prof. Launcelot Harrison, she conducted research on reproduction and placentation in viviparous (live-bearing) lizards from 1925–1934; part of this period (1929–1931) was spent in England in the lab of J.P. Hill.

[10][11] Weekes' research on the complex placentae of Pseudemoia entrecasteauxii was instrumental in the establishment of the species as a model organism for studying the evolution of pregnancy.