Integrative Psychiatry / Psychotherapy
A Holistic Approach To Mental Health
We focus on the whole person — mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and social — and not just disease symptoms. We take a step back so we can see our patient/client’s overall health profile and partner with you to determine the best treatment approaches to restoring wellness.
Integrative Psychiatry Approach
We partner with you to provide an in-depth/deep dive into all the factors that impact your health (genetic, environmental, early childhood trauma, and social/cultural aspects that impact spiritual, mind, body, and lifestyle) to discover the root causes of your symptoms to not only treat but heal and correct underlying causes of illness.
We provide education about the risks/benefits of various treatment approaches and partner with you and your inner intuition to come up with a tailored treatment program just for you. Our providers use non-violent communication (NCV) principles to provide a holistic and compassionate understanding of our patients' needs and how they can better enjoy their everyday lives.
- Traditional medication management and referrals to alternative and complementary treatments when needed.
- Functional medicine approaches to laboratory testing and lifestyle modification coaching with protocols that may include an elimination diet, genetic analyses to tailor which supplements to use, environmental detoxification, and bioenergetic approaches.
- Deep dive into understanding and treating the root causes of comorbid medical conditions and/or past trauma when needed.
- Close follow-up during med changes – daily to weekly if needed to ensure close monitoring of symptom improvement and to reduce the potential for any unwanted side effects.
- Easy patient portal experience to communicate with me between visits, track your symptoms, and make/modify your appointments when needed.
- Medication de-prescribing when indicated.
- Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and psychedelic integration when needed.
Functional medicine recognizes that illness does not occur in isolation, so this Functional Medicine Matrix, helps us examine the body systems, symptoms, and risk factors associated with our patient’s health conditions.
Specifically, the matrix provides an outline for the clinician to organize a patient’s clinical imbalances in the following biological systems, called nodes: defense and repair, energy, biotransformation and elimination, transport, communication, structural integrity, and assimilation.
Herbal & Plant Medicine Supplements
I prescribe several nutraceutical supplements from a functional medicine perspective when needed. I will typically recommend additional fatty acids and vitamin D as well as hormonal approaches depending on your age. Several non-pharmacological or botanical approaches can be used as an alternative to conventional psychotropics, anti-inflammatories, or antibiotics. I partner with Fullscript to prescribe and manage personalized quality supplements.
Weight Loss & Lifestyle Improvement
I spent the first part of my career studying and treating eating disorders that range from severe starvation with anorexia nervosa to binge-eating disorder and obesity. For binge-eating disorders and obesity due to excess caloric intake, I offer several weight loss strategies including the use of insurance-based coverage of GLP-1 and 2 agonist therapy as well as offering several compounded weight options in combination with regular weigh check-ins and supportive health coaching for weigh loss, remote monitoring of weight, BP/HR and daily mindfulness programs with BodySite.
Compounded Semaglutide with L-Arginine is available if your insurance doesn't cover it. The same active ingredient in Wegovy®* and Ozempic®* for only $250 for the 1st 2 month supply! We also sell Tirzepatide + L-Argenine for $450 for the 1st 2-month supply.
- Suppress Appetite
- Improves Health
- Lose Weight
Psychotherapy
Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
KAP includes preparatory, experiential, and integration sessions. Just like with surgery, good preparation and proper post-procedure rehabilitation are essential to good outcomes.
Lab Testing
I utilized standard laboratory tests standard tests to determine liver, kidney, thyroid, and hormonal functioning as well as more advanced testing of inflammation markers, hormones, infectious, environmental, and gut microbiome dysfunction when needed. A deep dive to assess risk with comprehensive panels to optimize health and prevent disease is also available through Rupa Health, Genova, Doctor’s Data.
Genetic Testing
The root cause of mental illness is typically due to genetic and environmental interactions and knowing your genetic predisposition for various diseases often allows for risk factors to be modified and risk significantly reduced. I always keep in mind that no two bodies or minds are the same and recommend Self Decode as well as Genesight when needed to predict response to specific medications, and optimize your medication regimen.
Collaborative Care
Our providers understand the importance of keeping your medical and psychotherapy team involved in your care and will collaborate by communicating with your other providers when needed and making referrals to our preferred network of allied health professionals (e.g. acupuncturist, active release therapy, lymphatic drainage, homeopathy, neurofeedback, etc.).
Ketamine Treatment
Ketamine is the best antidepressant medication currently available and is showing great promise as not only a treatment but a cure for PTSD, anxiety, and OCD.
It was made to be a safer alternative to PCP and is a dissociative anesthesia medication that is safe and frequently used in surgery for children and surgeries associated with pain. Ketamine was first used in the Vietnam War to help reduce pain and mental anguish on the battlefield. It is a very safe medication that doesn’t lower blood pressure or reduce respiratory rate. At low doses commonly prescribed intranasally or sublingually in ketamine clinics, it has a dissociative and true psychedelic effect that lasts for approximately 90 minutes. The effects are felt immediately and the antidepressant effects can last up to a week. A typical course of outpatient low-dose ketamine is 6 weeks but may be shorter or longer depending on the needs of each person. Ketamine promotes neuroplasticity allowing the brain to disconnect from old unhealthy patterns and realign with new beliefs. When combined with KAP, it allows for expedient and deep breakthroughs to heal spiritual and mental trauma and bring about profound and lasting change.
Ketamine treatment addressed core spiritual trauma that once acknowledged and accepted lead to improvements in the mind, body, lifestyle, and community.
Dr. Will Van Derveer, MD from the IPI C5 Year Long Psychedelic Assisted
Psychotherapy Program Lecture from July, 2023.