I am a board certified, conventionally trained adult and child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, a Harvard Medical School faculty member, with a private practice of holistic adult and child psychiatry located in Newton, Massachusetts. I have a deep curiosity about development and healing, and have an open mind about trying diverse approaches to help my patients. I am forever learning new things.
I am familiar with working within a traditional medical/psychiatric paradigm, but no longer endorse it. Too frequently suppression of symptoms with pharmaceuticals results in the degradation of health rather than healing. My approach is now oriented to identifying the root cause of illness in the tradition of functional medicine.
Increasingly I have begun to work with many of my patients to help them make the many changes necessary to optimize their health, which will eventually allow them to wean off prescription psychiatric medications or at least to reduce the dosages. This is not always possible, but with a variety of holistic approaches, including attending to the emotional and spiritual dimensions of a person’s life, appropriate diet, healing the immune system via supporting gut health and rebalancing biochemistry, it is often possible.
My most recent interest and developing area of expertise is in treating Environmentally Acquired Illness, specifically mold toxicity. Mold toxicity is largely unrecognized by conventional psychiatry and typically results in symptoms that prompt consultation with a psychiatrist, such as depression, anxiety, fatigue insomnia and cognitive changes to name a few.
I am skilled in the use of energetic/spiritual methodologies. I am trained in a variety of energetic approaches including Body Intuitive, Reiki, Astrology, the Tarot and Shamanism, and will include these modalities when there is interest.
I love my work, which I see as helping my patients become most fully themselves, enjoying optimum health and vitality, and creating and living a life they love. I believe that healing occurs through the integration of heart, mind, body and spirit. It is only through healing ourselves, can we most effectively contribute to healing the planet.
I chose a bridge as the symbol for my practice. I am drawn to consideration and inclusion of disparate contrasting elements in my understanding of people and situations. I like to keep the past and the present, the traditional and innovative, the ordinary and the sacred, the heart, mind, body and soul all present when I try to understand a person and figure out how to help. The bridge is also a symbol for attachment and connection, a necessary condition if growth is to occur. Attachment provides the central context in which my patients and I work together to heal them, and clear the way for further psycho/spiritual development.
