Functional Psychiatry
What is functional psychiatry and why do you need it?
Conventional psychiatry relies heavily upon pharmaceuticals to reduce or mask the symptoms of mental illness. It assumes nearly every illness is due to a neurotransmitter imbalance, and that medication will alleviate symptoms. However, there are far more factors that influence mental health than just neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. And medication alone will not resolve the root cause or underlying triggers.
For example, attention deficit symptoms, it could relate to anxiety, depression, trauma, inflammation, acute and chronic stress etc. Most practitioners will prescribe stimulants such as Adderall, Vyvanse to patients. When pure Dopamine chemical was put inside the body, you will feel some improving in focus, but the root cause was missing. Why could our body not produce our own dopamine? What is wrong with our body? Nowadays, there are over 20 ADHD medications on the market. These addictive medications would close our body’s own factory to produce the chemical we should be able to in the past. You will become addicted to stimulants and suffer from their side effects such as irritability, insomnia, poor appetite, even hallucination and paranoia.
With my help, you can most likely open up your own factory to make Dopamine for focus and joy so that you will not be dependent on stimulants anymore.
Another example is Benzodiazepine use (Xanax, Klonopin ect), these medications are supposed to be used temporarily for panic attacks, severe insomnia and acute agitations. It works by suppressing the neurons from firing up. Inappropriate use or long-term use will cause dependency, slow thinking, accidental falls and early onset of dementia. But Care providers rarely mention these to patients. A “win-win” situation would be keeping patient on monthly visit and patient feels “good” but worried about withdrawal symptoms including seizure.
With my help, we can figure out why your sympathetic nerve systems keeps firing up causing your symptoms. What chemicals are imbalanced, what minerals are at low level causing incomplete chemical reactions. We will explore together.
Nowadays, Autism and Dementia are still the toughest topics in mental illness treatment. In the main media, the root causes exploration and treatments are not promising. From the functional psychiatrist stand point, their symptoms are treatable, early diagnosis and intervention are important. Behavior disturbance could relate to multiple reasons including toxins, chronic inflammation, allergy and chemical deficiency. These could be ruled out easily by blood and urine testing as well as genetic testing.
Here is the article recently on Nature Magazine about Alzheimer dementia related to lithium mineral insufficiency in animal model. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09335-x
In functional medicine field, we knew this finding for years and lots of patients benefited from our suggestions. With the right supplement/medications, their dementia symptoms were improved or reversed.
Dr. William Walsh’s book Nutrient Power shows our daily intake and environments could have affected our mental status and conventional psychiatric treatment just offered temporary relief of the symptoms but ignored the causes. https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781628739879/nutrient-power/
One important theory is from Dr. Christopher Palmer’s recent book Brain Energy, a revolutionary breakthrough in understanding mental health, disclosing that mitochondrial dysfunction plays a significant role in psychiatric disorders like depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia by impairing energy production, increasing oxidative stress, and disrupting calcium regulation, all crucial for proper brain function. Healthy mitochondrial function, supported by a nutrient-rich diet, is crucial for overall health, and dietary approaches focusing on whole foods and beneficial supplements can support these essential powerhouses.