A short, deliberately curated set of materials: writing from this practice, the national crisis numbers worth keeping in your phone, and a handful of independent public sources that are accurate enough to rely on between appointments.
Practical notes written for patients, intended to make appointments more useful rather than to substitute for them.
[To add another article: copy /resources/preparing-for-your-first-visit.html to a new file in /resources/ with a hyphenated, descriptive filename, replace the title, description and canonical URL in the <head>, then add one <li> to the .post-list above and one matching <url> entry to /sitemap.xml. Three places, every time — a page that is not in the sitemap will be found by search engines late or not at all.]
This practice does not provide emergency or after-hours crisis services. The lines below are free, confidential, and staffed around the clock.
If you are thinking about harming yourself or someone else, or if someone near you is, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency department.
Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. Available 24 hours a day across the United States for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, and substance-use crises. You do not have to be suicidal to call.
Text HOME to 741741 to reach a trained volunteer crisis counsellor by text message, 24 hours a day.
Call 988 and press 1, or text 838255. Staffed by responders, many of them veterans, who understand military and VA systems.
Call 1-800-662-4357 for free, confidential, 24-hour treatment referral and information about mental health and substance use disorders, in English and Spanish.
[If you want an after-hours instruction specific to this practice — an answering service, a covering colleague, or an explicit statement that calls and messages are returned only during business hours — write it here. Patients reasonably assume a private practice is reachable after hours unless told plainly that it is not, and that assumption is the one that creates risk.]
Most of what is written about psychiatric illness online is either advertising or anecdote. These six sources are not. Each is maintained by a federal agency or a long-established non-profit, and each states its evidence and its limits.
Plain-language summaries of depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD and psychosis, written by the federal research institute that funds most of the underlying science — useful when you want the current mainstream understanding of a diagnosis rather than one clinician's view.
The National Library of Medicine's drug monographs: what a medication is for, how it is taken, what side effects are common versus serious, and what to do about a missed dose — the most reliable place to check something you half-remember from an appointment.
The FDA-approved safety documents that accompany specific prescription drugs, including boxed warnings and the risks the agency requires manufacturers to communicate directly to patients — the primary source, before anyone has summarised it.
The public registry of clinical studies worldwide, searchable by condition and location, with eligibility criteria and contact details listed for each site — the place to look if you are considering whether a research protocol might be an option for you.
A national grassroots organisation offering free education courses, local affiliates and support groups for patients and for families — particularly worth knowing about if the people around you are trying to help and do not know how.
Peer-led support groups, in person and online, plus mood-tracking tools and wellness plans built specifically around depression and bipolar disorder — the closest thing to a durable peer community in these conditions.
These are independent organisations. They are listed because their information is accurate and publicly accessible, not because this practice endorses them, is affiliated with them, or has any financial relationship with them. Their content is general education about conditions and medications; none of it is individual medical advice, none of it accounts for your history, and none of it should be used to start, stop or change a medication. Bring what you read to your appointment instead.
Most of what matters in psychiatry depends on the specifics of one person's history. If you are considering an evaluation, the next step is a conversation.