Therapy
Even though Dr. Jazi is able to prescribe a variety of psychiatry medications, psychotherapy is the focus of his psychiatry practice. Dr. Jazi believes many mental health conditions can be treated using psychotherapy alone or as an important adjunct to medications. Dr. Jazi practices Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) for most of his therapy patients. Or, he uses this technique combined with other psychotherapy modalities such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or mindfulness techniques to treat his patients.
In ISTDP the therapist helps the patient to become familiarized with their emotions. We as human beings have many emotions and some of them are painful. Therefore, we have learned to avoid/suppress them or not even experience them! We learn to use many defense mechanisms instead of feeling our emotions. Many of these defense mechanisms are destructive and cause mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, insomnia, or obsessive compulsive disorder. Also, they can exacerbate physical conditions such as chronic pain. By experiencing these emotions and identifying them, especially knowing their physical characteristics, we are able to process them during the therapy session and gradually resolve patients’ mental health and physical complaints.
Depending on the condition, ISTDP can take just a few sessions up to a number of sessions. Dr. Jazi usually videotapes his sessions with the patients, if they give him permission, and he reviews the tapes after each session for quality care improvement. Research studies have shown that ISTDP is helpful for a variety of mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, OCD, panic attacks, insomnia, and even bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Also, there are studies showing that ISTDP is helpful in the treatment of chronic pain.
Dr. Jazi has chosen to reduce his hourly fees for his psychotherapy services to make it easier for his patients to consider this treatment modality for their mental healthcare.
He usually schedules patients for 45-90 minutes initial therapy session and then the follow up sessions are usually 45 minutes to one hour. Frequency, number, and length of the sessions all depend on the chronicity of the condition, its severity, and the patient's resources.