My Approach to Mental Wellness

You have spent years trying to feel better. You have seen providers, tried medications, and followed the recommendations. And yet something remains unresolved: a fatigue that will not lift, a mood that shifts without warning, a sense that your body and mind are working against you. You have been told your labs are normal. You have been given another prescription. You have left appointments feeling unseen, hurried, and trapped on a medication that helps - a little - but does not cure.

You are not imagining it. And you are not out of options.

I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner who practices differently. I trained in conventional psychiatry and have spent more than 25 years in the mental health field, but I have also spent that time learning what standard care leaves out: hormones, nutrition, gut health, and inflammation. The biological forces that shape mood, cognition, and resilience in ways that a 15-minute appointment was never designed to uncover.

My practice is small by design. I work with children, adolescents, and adults, including women navigating the hormonal shifts of perimenopause and menopause. I take time with every patient, looking to solve the questions standard care never asked. Medications have a place in my practice, but they are not the destination. My goal is to understand and treat the underlying causes so that over time you need less not more.

If you have ever felt there had to be more to the story and better care out there, you are in the right place.

Psychiatric Expertise

I am a board-certified child and family psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, trained at the University of California, San Francisco and licensed in Virginia, Colorado and California. I have specialty training in addiction, substance use treatment, functional medicine, longevity medicine, perinatal psychiatry, bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and integrative psychiatry. I see individuals of all ages, from children through adults, offering comprehensive psychiatric assessment, diagnosis, and treatment that draws on all of these disciplines.

I began working in mental health in 2000 and have been practicing psychiatry since 2012. Before prescribing, I worked with adolescents in residential and wilderness programs, provided drug and alcohol counseling, and individual and group therapy to children and adults. That breadth of experience shapes how I practice and helped me understand what people carry long before they arrive in my office.

Being part of your process is a privilege that I do not take lightly. Although I am a prescriber, I do not meet with pharmaceutical drug representatives and I pursue evidence-based continuing medical education free from corporate sponsorship so that I learn what will help you, not what will make the pharmaceutical companies more money.

“Lis understood things early in treatment that other psychiatrists never got about me… She helped me feel heard and understood.”

The Treatment Process

This is your body and your process. I am committed to you feeling heard, cared for and supporting you in achieving your mental health goals. I am not committed to prescribing you medications. If it’s likely that you can feel better without using psychiatric medications, we can talk about how to make that happen and I’ll be here if you need me down the road.

During the assessment I will be working to learn about you, your history, what is bothering you, what you have already tried, and what you want to be different. This process typically takes two or three appointments. We will then discuss a wide variety of options to help you achieve your goals during our treatment planning appointment. From there, we create a wellness plan that integrates a variety of options from conventional psychiatric medications to non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as functional psychiatry, nutritional psychiatry, complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) or supplements, HRT, exercise, specialty testing, sleep hygiene, spiritual practices, creative methods, social involvement, and psychotherapy with a therapist, psychologist, or licensed counselor. This integrated approach is designed to treat the whole person and build a foundation for lasting change.

A good fit?

I hope to be a good fit for many but I understand that I will not be the perfect provider for all individuals. I work to listen, “read the room” and attune while also welcoming feedback. Medical and health care provider trauma is common in mental health and I want to do what I can to help individuals have a positive experience and possibly heal from previous experiences where they felt dismissed, ignored, or labeled. With that said, there are limitations to my work:

• I offer support to clients wishing to taper off of benzodiazepines but I do not start benzodiazepines or continue benzodiazepines as a form of treatment.

• I am a conservative prescriber, especially with medications that have the potential for misuse, like stimulants. See ADHD Treatment

• I am only as good as the information provided. If a client is not disclosing information about symptoms or problems, I will be less effective.

• The outcomes reflect the commitment and care you bring to your healing. Although we rarely feel energized and motivated when we are struggling with our mental health, your involvement will directly shape the results of our work together.

• Patients who also work with a therapist will make marked improvements compared to functional psychiatry or medication alone.

• I provide bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) for perimenopausal and menopausal women who are experiencing mental health concerns such as sleep difficulties, anxiety, depression, problems with cognition or focus, irritability, and anger. I support gender affirming care for trans individuals though this is not a clinical specialty in which I have advanced training. I also do not prescribe birth control as a form of HRT.

• As a treating provider, I am obligated to do a full assessment, share diagnostic information and recommendations for treatment, while also discussing the risks and benefits of all reasonable options.

• I am not a forensic specialist and will not be appropriate for some individuals who meet medical necessity for specialty psychiatry care.

• Our clinic has a firm cancellation policy that may not be a good fit for some. We require any cancellation or rescheduling occur at least two full business days before the appointment to avoid the full fee.

• Parents of child patients are often asked to start their own psychotherapy, engage in parenting skills training, couples therapy, or family therapy, if and when indicated.

• I specialize in psychiatry and only offer psychiatric care. If a client has a health concern that is outside of my training or scope of practice, they will be referred to a health care provider.

Next Steps

If what you have read resonates, please review my fees so that you have a clear picture of what to expect. If you are ready for a different kind of care, I look forward to hearing from you.