I integrate skills in both psychiatric medications and deep psychotherapy to help patients address the symptoms that surface and the deeper patterns beneath them. Available in-person in Los Altos and via telehealth throughout California.
I am a board-certified psychiatrist with a practice built at the intersection of several disciplines. My training in both psychiatry and intensive psychodynamic psychotherapy means I bring a dual fluency — I can think carefully about the neurobiology of a condition and prescribe accordingly, while also sitting with a patient in the kind of sustained, exploratory therapeutic work that surfaces what medications alone cannot reach.
I have a particular commitment to working with individuals for whom cross-cultural identity, immigration, and multicultural experience shape their emotional lives. These dimensions often go unnamed in treatment but can be central to a person's suffering and growth. I speak Mandarin Chinese and can work with individuals for whom Mandarin is their mother tongue.
Many of the people I work with are thoughtful, introspective, high-functioning individuals who are managing more internally than others around them realize. Some are navigating mood disorders, anxiety, ADHD, obsessive patterns, disordered eating, or addictive behaviors shaped in part by biological predispositions they didn't choose. Others arrive with a vaguer sense that something is off despite a life that looks fine from the outside. In many cases, medication plays a critical role — not as a solution in itself, but as a way of quieting the neurobiological noise enough for the real work to take hold. When the right medication stabilizes what biology has destabilized, it creates room for the person to grow — to develop insight, to tolerate difficult feelings, to change relational patterns — within the context of a psychotherapy relationship built on deep and collaborative understanding. That combination — pharmacologic precision and generative relational work — is what I find most meaningful, and where I see patients change in ways that last.
I am an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, where I teach and supervise psychiatry residents and medical students. Teaching keeps me close to the evolving science, and the rigor of training others sharpens my own clinical thinking.
I think of the human psyche as the proverbial iceberg. Beneath the surface lies a foundation shaped by biology and environment, and the dynamic interactions of the two which engenders the development of the unconscious and conscious mind and one's sense of self. What we see above the waterline — insomnia, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, obsessive thinking, anger, substance use, disordered eating — are often expressions of something deeper and more structural.
As a psychiatrist steeped in psychodynamic psychotherapy, I work to understand patients from the bottom up and from the top down. That means attending to the unconscious and relational patterns that organize a person's inner life, while also addressing the symptoms that show up in daily functioning. Both directions of inquiry inform each other, and both matter in effective treatment.
I bring this same orientation to medication. Psychopharmacologic treatment is not psychologically inert — the choices involved in what to prescribe, when, and how carry real meaning for the patient's subjective experience and sense of self. I think carefully about how a medication fits within the broader context of a person's treatment — what it means to the patient to take it, how it interacts with the work we're doing in therapy, and whether it supports or complicates their sense of agency over their own mind.
At the center of all of this is the relationship. I work to build an alliance that is safe, honest, and substantial enough to hold difficult material, which allows for corrective experiences to be internalized and generalized.
Ongoing and regularly-scheduled sessions drawing on theories and experience from depth psychology, tailored to your goals and what emerges in our work together.
Thoughtful prescribing integrated into therapy or as standalone visits, with close monitoring and a conservative, collaborative, and evidence-based approach to medication decisions.
The ability to provide both therapy and medication within a single relationship — so that prescribing decisions are informed by a deep understanding of who you are.
Available for in-person sessions in Los Altos and via secure, HIPAA-compliant video throughout California — offering flexibility without compromising the depth of the work.
A comprehensive evaluation of your current concerns alongside your medical, psychiatric, and personal history. We'll develop an assessment and treatment plan together.
Regularly scheduled psychotherapy sessions with concurrent medication prescribing when indicated. Therapy and medication decisions are integrated into a single relationship.
Focused visits for medication prescribing, dosage adjustments, and monitoring. Frequency depends on your treatment stage and complexity.
B.S. Cellular & Molecular Biology, University of Michigan
M.D. University of Michigan Medical School
Psychiatry internship and residency, Stanford University School of Medicine
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy fellowship, San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis (Palo Alto program)
I currently hold an appointment as Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine.
The first step is a brief conversation. Email me to get started — tell me a bit about what brings you in and what you are hoping for in treatment. We can arrange a complimentary 15-minute phone call followed by an initial appointment if it seems like a good fit.
650.542.8333
Los Altos, CA
Available throughout California
407.550.7139
530 Showers Dr. Ste 7-380
Mountain View, CA 94040