Our clinicians provide comprehensive psychiatric evaluations and treatment to individuals and family members age 18 and older. We believe that the best treatment recommendations result from a “holistic” understanding of each individual. This involves consideration of medical, cognitive, social and psychological elements. We assess how they impact your capacity to take care of yourself, work, engage in meaningful relationships and contribute to society.
Your mental health impacts the rest of your health and vise versa, so it is important for us to work with your other healthcare providers to optimize your total health. As a patient in one of the BWFH Psychiatry programs, with your permission, only essential medical details of your treatment are shared with other clinicians. Sometimes it can also be important for us to obtain further information about your illness and functioning from family members and significant others as well as to educate your family and address issues that may be adding to the levels of stress you may be experiencing. Other than situations of life-threatening emergency, we will always discuss the rationale for such contacts with you prior to pursuing them, then do so, again, only with your permission. Involving more than one mental health clinician in your evaluation process in a collaborative or team-based fashion usually results in the best outcome.
We encourage you to be an active participant in your care and will work together with you to design a personalized treatment plan. In some instances, a psychiatric social worker will be the first person you will meet during your initial visit, followed by a meeting with the psychiatrist. The social worker may continue to stay involved for a period of time to assure that your treatment gets off to a good start, that you and your significant other and family members get the necessary support and education and to help you take an active role in creating the best possible treatment plan for you.
Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry offers medication, individual, couple and group psychotherapy with an emphasis on skills-based training such as cognitive-behavioral therapy. Other talking or behavioral therapies may be recommended. Whenever possible, we will provide ongoing care after the initial evaluation. However, patients with more straight forward psychiatric illnesses who are medically well may be referred to community providers for ongoing care.
