It’s a pleasure to meet you,
I’m Dr. Poole
I’m a board-certified psychiatrist with passions for both psychopharmacology (the study of how medicines affect the brain to alleviate mental illness) and psychotherapy (the study and practice of using human interaction and communication to treat mental conditions). While in residency training at UC Riverside, I sought a greater depth and breadth of understanding in these fields which held such promise for helping and healing people. As a result, I pursued outside training and certifications in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy from the New Center for Psychoanalysis (NCP) and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy and Research (CPTR) from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). Additionally, while completing my residency training at the Long Beach VA I undertook a 2-year seminar in Relational Therapy for my work with veterans, predominantly in the PTSD clinic. I’ve also been fortunate to have the opportunity to twice publish with master Psychopharmacologist Stephen Stahl, MD on new and emerging treatments for mental illness in the world of pharmacology.
Following my training,
I set out to use all that I had learned and practiced to provide meaningful and life-changing care for my patients. However, I soon discovered that there were significant hurdles to offering the type of mental health care my patients needed. If you’ve had any experience with obtaining mental health treatment in the past you’ve likely run into problems like difficulty in getting an appointment or reaching your provider, finding the right medications, feeling like you’ve never had enough time to share fully what you’re experiencing, or simply feeling like you’re a number in a provider’s long list of people to see in a day. It can be an alienating and frustrating experience to feel that not only are you not being given the time you need or deserve, but that the proper care for your life and mental health has been reduced to a 15-minute medication check.
My experience working as a psychiatrist in settings that provided care this way left me feeling hollow and frustrated.I wanted so much more for the people I cared about.I felt that they deserved better than what I could offer within the constraints of these types of medical systems. So, I resolved to open a practice that would provide the type of care I believe people deserve; the type of care I feel called to give.
It is my mission,
to provide holistic and bespoke mental health care using medications, psychoanalytic and relational psychotherapy, and psychedelic-assisted therapy and integration. I am committed to providing excellence in mental health care by using the most up to date practices in psychiatry and by my dedication to meeting individuals where they are to better understand how to help them. I work with compassion and empathy in partnership with people to explore the ways to best improve their quality of life.