Trauma therapy and PTSD treatment in San Francisco, by a psychiatrist trained where it's most severe.

Why trauma is different
from other mental health conditions.

Most mental health conditions involve patterns of thought, mood, or behavior that have gone awry. Trauma is different: it's a wound. Something happened that the nervous system wasn't equipped to fully process, and the unprocessed residue gets stored — not as a memory in the conventional sense, but as a physiological state the body keeps returning to.

This is why people with PTSD don't simply "think about" the trauma — they re-experience it. A smell, a sound, a certain quality of light triggers a full-body response that bypasses rational thought entirely. Understanding this distinction changes how treatment is approached. Among adults with PTSD, more than a third experience serious functional impairment — difficulty maintaining work, relationships, and daily life — underscoring why specialized, evidence-based treatment is essential (National Institute of Mental Health).

Where this comes from.

My residency at Tripler Army Medical Center — the only civilian on a military psychiatric program — was an intensive education in the most complex presentations of PTSD, working alongside active-duty service members. That training shaped how I treat trauma in every patient since.

I've trained extensively in two evidence-based trauma treatments that don't require detailed verbal retelling of the traumatic event:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) — uses bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess traumatic memories that have become stuck.
• Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) — a newer, often faster approach that combines elements of EMDR with guided imagery to rapidly reduce the emotional charge of traumatic memories.

Both modalities can produce significant results without requiring you to narrate the trauma in detail. The work happens at the level of the nervous system, not just the story.

What treatment looks like.

I don't separate the therapeutic work from the medication management. If medication is appropriate — and for trauma, that sometimes means addressing the hyperarousal and sleep disruption that make deeper processing impossible — I handle both myself, within the same ongoing relationship.

The first step is always understanding the whole picture: when the trauma occurred, how it has shaped your patterns and relationships, what has and hasn't helped in the past. From there, I build a treatment plan that matches your specific situation — not a protocol applied uniformly to everyone with a PTSD diagnosis.

My approach is fundamentally optimistic. The brain retains neuroplasticity throughout life, and there is now compelling evidence that trauma — even severe, longstanding trauma — can be meaningfully processed and resolved. I've seen this in patients who had lived with PTSD for decades. Recovery is not guaranteed, but it is genuinely possible.

Who this is right for.

My practice is well-suited for adults dealing with a range of traumatic experiences: combat or military service, sexual assault or abuse, childhood developmental trauma, accidents, medical trauma, sudden loss, or chronic interpersonal trauma. It's less suited for individuals in acute crisis requiring inpatient stabilization — if that's where you are, I can help you find the right level of care.