Updates about psychiatry and our practice.
Biofeedback is a stress management technique that uses devices that give you information about your body’s physiologic response to stress. The idea is to provide you with information that would ordinarily be outside of your conscious awareness, such as your body temperature, blood pressure, or heart rate. Generally, there are three stages of biofeedback: Developing increased awareness of the body …
Would home blood draws (or office blood draws for that matter) be helpful? Obtaining routine blood work can be an essential part of your treatment if you have a mood disorder and are on medications as it is very important to know the levels in your blood reached by mood-stabilizing drugs. Finding time however to get your labs done can …
Recently the American Psychological Association (APA) held their annual conference here in San Francisco and Gateway staff was there to take advantage of the opportunity to update our knowledge of the most recent developments in the field. Gina Gregory, LCSW and I spent the long weekend attending workshops, presentations, and discussions in order to align ourselves with the current research …
Once again we are reminded of the power of retrospective mood charting to transform treatment. A young man who has “tried every medication” without any success and has been seriously suicidal, recently came in to see us and we convinced him to try putting together a retrospective mood chart. The process was quite time intensive, but the result was a …
This weekend we have done some hard work behind the scenes creating a better treatment resources index to allow clinicians and patients to quickly access information about the array of services, online applications, clinical tests, pharmacogenetics tests, online courses and online CBT therapies that are provided at Gateway Psychiatric. There are so many tools in our toolbox that it can …
Finger stick lab tests have the potential to significantly improve the quality of the care at Gateway Psychiatric. Regular monitoring of labs are an important part of good care for many of our patients, but some find it difficult to get labs done on time. A new technology from clinical laboratory provider OpAns may allow us to perform many of …
The news of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade’s death by suicide as well as the CDC’s report on increasing suicide rates in the US reminds us of a larger public health crisis that was given the name “deaths of despair” by researchers Case and Deaton (see below). We have been collecting information on this topic in preparation for an effort …
Sleepio is a six-session sleep improvement program, created by sleep expert Professor Colin Espie and featuring proven Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques. We are happy to add this treatment option to the list of state of the art therapies available at Gateway Psychiatric. For more information about CBT for insomnia and online programs to help improve sleep please read this …
I am so excited to welcome new staff member Chris Restivo, who starts full time work next week as a therapist and case manager. Chris joins us from the Felton Institute’s award winning Prevention and Recovery in Early Psychosis program and the Bipolar Early Assessment and Management program, where he quickly established himself as an especially gifted therapist working with young …
We are excited to announce that we will be hosting our fourth Bipolar 101 Group beginning in June. The group will be held online over Zoom video conferencing and will consist of 6 sessions that are 90 minutes in length for $190 total. Group meetings will be scheduled so that everyone with an interest can attend. They usually take place in the late afternoon …
