Where Therapy and Medications Make a Dream Team
beyond the car shop model of psychiatry
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Psychology-Informed Psychiatric Care
You deserve psychiatric care that understands both your symptoms and your story. At Cognia, we reject the assembly-line approach to mental health, offering instead the rare integration of psychology and psychiatry that creates lasting transformation.
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Psychiatric Evaluations
Understanding What May Have Been Missed
Comprehensive assessments that uncover the complete picture when others may have been stumped.
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Comprehensive Treatment
Where Science Meets Compassion
Psychotherapy-informed medication management that honors both your brain neurobiology and emotional world.
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Online or In-Person
Accessible Excellence Throughout Washington
Secure telehealth eliminates barriers while maintaining deep therapeutic connection.
About Cognia
The Integration That Changes Everything
Our approach integrates two complementary perspectives: understanding your inner emotional world and managing your brain's neurobiology. Because I trained as both a Clinical Psychologist and Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, I can see how your relationships, trauma history, and life experiences shape how you respond to medications. This integration often reveals insights that single-discipline approaches might miss.
In practice, this means our conversations flow seamlessly between different aspects of your wellbeing. We might explore how your sleep patterns connect to your anxiety, then consider how a medication could support both issues without disrupting the therapeutic insights you've gained in therapy. Or we might discover that what looks like treatment-resistant depression is actually unprocessed grief intersecting with a medical condition that's affecting your brain's functioning.
This integrated perspective proves especially powerful for complex cases where patients have spent years without significant improvement. When psychology and psychiatry work as true partners rather than separate consultations, we often uncover the missing pieces that make lasting change possible.
Why This Matters for Your Healing
Beyond Symptom Management: At times, psychiatric care focuses on reducing symptoms, often without searching for their deeper meaning. My psychology background means we explore not just what you're experiencing, but why these patterns emerged and how they connect to your life story.
Medication as Partnership: Rather than prescribing based solely on symptom checklists, we consider how medications interact with your personality structure, defense mechanisms, and relational patterns. This psychodynamic approach to psychopharmacology often explains why previous treatments may have fallen short.
Complex Case Expertise: Many of our patients arrive after years of misdiagnosis or treatment-resistant symptoms. My dual expertise frequently reveals what can be easy to miss: the subtle interplay between trauma, ADHD, and autism, the connection between sleep disorders and mood instability, or how medical conditions mask psychiatric symptoms.
Accessible Excellence Throughout Washington State
Through secure telehealth platforms, we eliminate geographic barriers while maintaining the deep therapeutic relationships essential for healing. Whether you're navigating Seattle's tech culture, managing Pacific Northwest seasonal challenges, or seeking care in rural communities across Eastern Washington, comprehensive psychiatric care is accessible statewide.
The beauty of this approach lies in meeting you where you are, literally and figuratively. Some patients prefer the privacy of their own environment, others appreciate avoiding commute stress during vulnerable moments, and many find that consistent virtual sessions create a different kind of intimacy and safety. For those who benefit from occasional face-to-face interaction, I maintain an office in Seattle where we can integrate in-person sessions as part of your overall care plan.
This flexibility ensures that geography never becomes a barrier to receiving the specialized, psychology-informed psychiatric care that can make the difference between surviving and truly thriving.
Specialized Expertise for Complex Lives
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When standard approaches haven't worked, my integrated perspective often reveals overlooked connections: undiagnosed ADHD masquerading as anxiety, trauma responses misidentified as depression, or medical conditions creating psychiatric symptoms. I specialize in the intricate relationships between mental health and conditions like PCOS, perimenopause, fibromyalgia, hEDS, POTS, and thyroid disorders.
Key Areas of Focus:
- Treatment-resistant depression and anxiety
- ADHD and autism across the lifespan
- Sleep disorders using CBTi integration
- Trauma-informed care with medical complexity
- Perinatal mental health and psychoendocrinology
- Differential diagnosis for complex presentations
Many patients find answers with us that may have eluded them for years, discovering the missing pieces that make lasting change possible.
Your Partnership in Transformation
I believe the most effective care happens through genuine partnership. You bring expertise about your experience, relationships, and goals. I contribute specialized expertise in understanding how medications work within your unique psychological landscape, optimizing sleep for mental wellness, and recognizing how physical and mental health intertwine.
What to Expect:
• Comprehensive assessment examining your complete health picture and life patterns
• Collaborative treatment planning that honors your values and circumstances
• Integration with your existing care team when beneficial
• Bilingual services in English and Spanish
Whether you're facing treatment-resistant conditions, complex diagnostic questions, or feeling disconnected from your authentic self, we'll work together to understand what's happening and develop meaningful strategies for change.
Take the Next Step
If you're seeking psychiatric care that goes beyond quick medication adjustments, let's talk. I work with adults ages 18 (not in high school) to 55 throughout Washington State who need comprehensive assessment, complex case consultation, or simply want a provider who understands both the psychological and medical aspects of mental health.
Getting Started:
We'll begin with a thorough consultation to understand your complete clinical picture and develop a treatment approach tailored to your specific needs.