David Banayan

I believe in the empowerment of people through health education and collaborative problem solving. One of my goals as a psychiatrist is to help individuals better understand themselves and their experiences, in the world in which they live. Ultimately, my hope is the help people flourish in their lives, in whatever ways are meaningful to them and to remove the barriers created by psychiatric or psychological illness. I chose psychiatry as a profession because I enjoy working with people, celebrating their victories and being a support during times of difficulty. As a psychiatrist I strongly believe that psychological care and pharmacologic agents have their own unique roles and benefits in treatment, but that individuals should be empowered to make decisions that are right for them. I am a Board-Certified general psychiatrist and a fellowship-trained (University of Chicago) Board-Certified Consultation-Liaison (CL) psychiatrist (formerly called Psychosomatic Medicine). As a CL Psychiatrist I help patients and other physicians understand how medical problems can create or worsen psychiatric problems, and vice versa. A CL Psychiatrist is also skilled in understanding how to use psychotropic medications in the context of underlying medical problems or when other pharmaceutical drugs are being used to treat a non-psychiatric medical problem. My clinical interests are wide, and include psychological therapies (e.g., psychodynamic, CBT, brief dynamic, insight-oriented), application of mindfulness / meditation / yoga / wellness paradigms as adjuncts to treatment, and working with individuals who have diagnoses such as depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, OCD, trauma, and those who have both chronic general medical illness as well as a history of, or a new, psychiatric problem.