My Approach to Treatment

PHILOSOPHY OF CARE.

 Good care means understanding and treating the whole person — not just the symptoms.

As a physician whose specialty is in the treatment of emotional suffering, I have been trained to thoroughly evaluate the whole person: carefully assessing and re-assessing the nature and sources of my patients’ symptoms while offering a range of therapeutic interventions to alleviate those symptoms and restore health.

Many psychiatrists offer only medication services, leaving non-medication treatments to others. However, in my experience, most patients - particularly those with complex and trauma-based disorders - benefit from integrated treatments in which medication options are just one of many therapies, all offered by a single clinician. This means that my work entails far more than prescribing medications, and sometimes includes no medication at all. I am especially cautious with children: medication is never used as a behavioral control measure, but only when a physical or biological factor appears to be contributing to a child’s distress and other approaches have been insufficient on their own. Every medication carries some risk of side effects, so my standard is a simple one — any intervention, including medication, should leave a child or adult better able to function, not more impaired.

Over years of practice, I’ve come to see my thousands of patients as my best teachers: children, youth, and adults who’ve shown me that real progress starts with being heard accurately and thoughtfully, not with checklists or a scripted “how did that make you feel?” In my work, I endeavor to evaluate not only emotional, but also physiological, social, environmental influences because one’s suffering is rarely maintained by only a single system.

I build every treatment plan as a true partnership: patients bring their own story, in their own words, and I bring my clinical skills and experience to help make sense of suffering and to evolve a plan for treatment defining specific goals and doing regular check-ins to gauge whether those goals are being met.

  • Parents know their child best. I work with them as partners, especially in the years when a child’s distress may principally be communicated through behaviors.

    For younger children especially, that partnership is essential — you share the history, temperament, concerns, and small changes that matter. Paired with my understanding of normal child development, that knowledge is often the key to figuring out what’s really going on. My partnership with parents extends through the totality of treatment — not just at the start — because children’s evolving stories are only complete when the people who know them best help to tell them.

  • By adolescence, most young people have found their own voice — my work is to meet them there, while keeping parents involved as partners.

    That doesn’t mean that youth are always eager to use that voice, especially with a parent in the room. The balance between earning a teenager’s trust and keeping parents informed as their caretakers is a real one to navigate. I work directly with teens, respectfully and at their pace, while still keeping parents informed and part of their child’s care.

  • Emotional health is shaped by the family system around a child, so my work often extends well beyond the individual patient.

    That can mean parent guidance and support, couples work when parents see things differently, or broader family work — including helping parents keep parenting steady through separation, divorce, or other family crises.

  • Pediatricians, therapists, schools, and courts: I believe in working alongside all the professionals and systems around a child. I also welcome consultation, supervision, and referral inquiries. [Learn more →]

  • If you or someone you know is going through separation or a divorce, I also offers family mediation services. This a non-adversarial path to custody and parenting agreements and is set up through my Center for Collaborative Parenting. Please click on the page for “mediation” to learn more.