Psychiatry, Behavioral, & Mental Health
Make an Appointment
For the Charlottesville area:
434.243.4646For Manassas:
703.369.8055According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 5 adults deals with a mental illness each year.
At UVA Health, we offer mental and behavioral health treatments for a wide variety of concerns.
Along with a dedicated hospital unit for adults, we provide:
- Psychotherapy and outpatient medication management, specializing in ADHD, mood, and anxiety disorders
- An 8-bed section of our emergency department set aside for evaluating and treating behavioral and mental health emergencies
- Treatment designed to support people with chronic conditions and illnesses
- Special care for geriatric, pediatric, and women's health issues
In Crisis & Need Help Now?
If you or someone else is in crisis, call, text, or chat the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
TMS Therapy for Depression
About one-third of people with depression have experienced little to no relief from antidepressants. TMS therapy is an FDA-approved, non-drug treatment option for those who suffer from depression.
TMS stands for transcranial magnetic stimulation. It's a procedure by which we use a magnet to deliver an electrical stimulation to the parts of the brain that have been associated with depression. A patient might be a good candidate for TMS if they have a current episode of major depression. So symptoms like low mood, troubled sleeping, low energy, hopeless thoughts, suicidal thoughts, and that this depression has been inadequately treated with antidepressant treatment, currently and in the past. It's on average about 37 minutes that the patient sits in the chair. But sometimes it could be a little bit shorter and sometimes it could be a little bit longer. The side effects are pretty minimal because we're able to deliver the treatment directly to the spot in the brain where we need it, unlike medications. But the most common things are headache and scalp pain, just from the location and the power from the magnet. If a patient is considering or interested in TMS, they can talk to their primary care doctor or to their psychiatrist about a referral. But we also accept referrals directly from patients by calling our TMS clinic.
The Practice of Mindfulness
Living with cancer, chronic disease or comorbidity is not only taxing on the body but on the mind. Kim Penberthy, PhD, ABPP, speaks to her work in mindfulness-based therapies.
So many people that I see have medical conditions, either diseases or pain or both. And they are suffering from psychological symptoms, in addition. For instance, the therapy we do might help their depression and also alleviate some of their pain. The other thing I found is often when I do therapy with someone it helps them be more compliant with their medical treatment. In the cancer center for instance many of the therapies are very onerous. They're very taxing. And so having someone to help support you and teach you coping skills to get through your chemotherapy, your radiation, can be very helpful. A lot of the work that I do is in the area of mindfulness. Mindfulness is a kind of state of being where you are intentionally in the present moment in a nonjudgmental way. And this has been found to be a very therapeutic place to be in terms of your frame of mind. A lot of the mindfulness-based therapies that I do help people achieve that state of mind so that they can then do additional things in a more effective way. We also know that mindfulness-based interventions are very effective for people with chronic pain in addition to other chronic disorders. It seems to very much help them cope in more effective ways and live their life so that they have a better quality of life.
Psychiatry, Behavioral, & Mental Health
Conditions We Treat
- Anxiety disorders
- Attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Bipolar disorder
- Borderline personality disorder
- Depression
- Eating disorders like anorexia, binge eating, bulimia
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder
- Panic disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Sexual dysfunction
- Schizophrenia
- Substance abuse and addiction
- Traumatic brain injury (TBI)