Integrative psychiatry includes medication and meaning.

Medications can be life-changing for some, though it’s not a cure-all. Maybe you’ve tried a bunch and nothing worked, or the side effects were intolerable. Maybe you’re worried meds will blunt your personality or make you feel numb. I get it, and I’ll work with you to find a regimen that helps you feel like yourself again.

I assess all molecules that impact the mind, from escitalopram to estrogen, caffeine to cannabis, low-dose naltrexone to lamotrigine, rhodiola to—you get it. Sometimes adding the right molecule makes a massive difference, or it may be possible to streamline and simplify your existing medication list.

It used to be called “the talking cure,” but I prefer “the connection cure.” Psychotherapy is a weekly therapeutic conversation that dissolves old patterns and generates new, enlivening stories about ourselves and the world. It involves addressing past trauma that is draining your energy and challenging outdated beliefs that are limiting your potential. I draw from many schools of psychotherapy but emphasize narrative approaches. Technique matters, but at the core of it, feeling deeply understood and accepted, even when you’re showing your not-best self, drives the process.

Change is always tough, and peri/menopause is one of the rockiest transitions of all. You don’t have to suffer through the brain fog, disrupted sleep, mood chaos, increased anxiety, and occasional desire to murder. Too often, we try to treat these symptoms with anti-depressants when hormone replacement might be a better option, either alone or in combination. A generation of people missed out on the benefits of HRT due to misinformation. I’m eager to share this treatment so you can thrive through midlife.

For many supplements and botanicals, there is solid evidence for their safety and efficacy in depression, anxiety, sleep issues, low energy, and cognitive dulling. I direct folks to high-quality products at therapeutic doses. Some people prefer using these products to pharmaceuticals, and I will always be direct and honest with you about whether I think they are a viable option in your situation.

Tension lives in our tissues. Treatment cannot only be “neck up.” Tending to the body helps us release trauma and integrate insights happening in our heads. It’s easy to forget we are embodied, so we make sure we attune to the information contained in sensations, gestures, and movements, down to our cells.

Guided visualization can be very effective in mobilizing the unconscious mind in a way that talking can’t. I love learning about patients’ most powerful places, images, and symbols and weaving them into personalized meditations that we can record to use between sessions.

Some people want to approach their mental health through nutrition, movement, and meditation. To be real, I never recommend exercise to overtly depressed folks because I don’t understand how anyone could work out when they have no energy or motivation. That said, significant shifts can come from these changes, and the only side effects are positive ones.

Diotima Mantineia wrote, “Only a strong, experiential, bedrock foundation in a larger reality will allow us to manage the fear and anxiety that are part and parcel of living in the material world.” The scope of the world’s challenges requires an equally large counterbalance, and that can mean cultivating some form of spiritual framework and practice that feels genuine to you.

We can conduct genetic testing or detailed labwork to detect underlying causes of symptoms and guide our treatment choices. Labs aren’t a crystal ball, but attending to the medical side of mental health certainly matters.