My Background

Before completing medical school and training to become a psychiatrist, I studied religion and philosophy. As an undergraduate, I sought to understand how individuals throughout history approached some of the most significant questions that we face as humans, such as, “what does it mean to be alive”, “what is a good life”, and “what is my obligation to others and the world”. My studies in religion offered a chance to think comparatively about the different ways people have attempted to access meaning through spirituality and faith. While my studies didn’t provide any absolute answers to the questions of life, they did give me an abiding appreciation and respect for the power of thinking deeply and comparatively about individual and collective experiences of suffering and living. I came to believe that it was in moments of connection and relationship with others that we are better able to understand ourselves, and move from pain to health. For each of us there is tremendous value in finding the forms of connectivity that provide us access to our unique path towards meaning. As the theologian and existential philosopher Martin Buber said, “the world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the ‘understanding’ of one of its beings”.

These beliefs led me to pursue medicine, and train to be a psychiatrist. I view the practice of a psychiatry at its most basic as the collaboration of doctor and patient exploring and talking through the patient’s lived experience with a radical openness to understanding that few other relationships allow. I was fortunate to train at Harvard/Cambridge Health Alliance, which is one of the few remaining training programs that emphasizes an engagement with a humanistic and psychodynamic approach to clinical work. Whether we are working together in psychotherapy, medication management or combined treatment I place a great value on not just treating your symptoms, but striving for us together to understand what your symptoms mean in the context of the life you are living, and the life you are hoping to live. I believe that in working together, we can move towards a more holistic understanding of what it means to be uniquely you, and hold open your unique path towards living your authentic life.

Outside of clinical and academic work, I am a Chicagoland native and unabashed Chicago Cubs fan and sports enthusiast. I also enjoy hiking, being in nature, and living an active lifestyle as well as being a movie, television, and pop-culture aficionado.