Beginning our work
I start care with a complementary exploratory phone call to see if and how I can be of use. We then meet in-person or via telesession to review what you have shared in your Beginning Treatment Packet and build a full consultation. Diagnostic and planning consultations are usually 3 sessions in my practice. Consults identify core psychological symptoms, potential physical health contributors, and personal strengths; these initial sessions also give you a sense of what it feels like to work with me during intensive psychotherapy. An effective consultation should include measurement based assessments and conclude with specific recommendations for tenable medical, psychologic, and health behavior improvements.
Please see an overview of psychotherapy and the resources page for insurance and additional aspects of making the most of treatment.
Beginning Treatment Packet
Psychiatry
Effectual psychiatry is a collaboration. I aim to deeply listen to your strengths and areas of suffering. I aim to clearly explain and foster understanding of the essential aspects of the medical model, the power and limits of psychopharmocology, and realistic treatment benefits from medicine. My work integrates evidence-based psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapies (especially for the behavior of sleep), and substance use recovery. I employ a symptom and time limited use of medication and nutraceuticals. Our work will explore if and how health behaviors may support psychotherapy effectiveness and continue after medication is concluded.
PSYCHOANALYSIS
The majority of my practice is devoted to psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic therapies are evidence-supported with profound capacities to develop deep and lasting personal improvement. Creating and using an analytic relationship facilitates awareness of essential explicit and implicit ways you feel, think, and relate. Psychoanalytic work supports tolerating and more fully accepting your own narratives and how you relate during times of ease and distress. The later stages of psychoanalytic treatment facilitate proactive advances in satisfaction, meaning, and purpose in your life.
If you prefer or cannot bill insurance for our work, please consider the following:
I am an in-network physician with some policies for the following insurers:
MODA (formerly ODS)
WHEN I refer
Valuing your time, I think it useful to know services that are not a part of my work. I integrate psychiatric care for adult clients working in psychotherapy one to five times per week; and I work only with individual adolescents or adults. I do not provide: treatment limited to specific conditions (ADHD or OCD, for example); problem-focused treatment (such as EMDR or DBT); or psychiatric assessments or treatment plans supporting medical procedures (bariatric or other mental health clearance), mental health disability, work accommodations, or additional legal determinations. I provide stimulant and other psychiatric medication only for established psychotherapy patients. If you seek services outside my expertise and focus; I support you finding a trusted expert who does this work.
During our work, your treatment will be more effective and efficient if we integrate care with a trusted primary care practitioner. I can help refer you to a primary care clinician if you do not have one. For partnered patients, I readily refer to couple’s therapists using the Gottman method or emotion focused therapy (EFT). Especially when discontinuation of medicine is our work, I support patients developing work with mindfulness, health behavior, and social prescribing practices.