Psychiatry: Letter from the Chair

Welcome to George Washington University (GWU) Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Jeffrey S. Akman, MD

Seeking treatment here means that you will be seen by a faculty member of the George Washington University medical school. Our clinicians are both highly trained at our nation’s best professional schools and are also excellent teachers and scholars for our medical students and psychiatry residents. Each clinician has achieved expertise in a broad scope of psychiatric treatments, both use of medications and use of different psychotherapies for individual, couple, or family problems.

Most mental health problems prompting consultation with a mental health professional arise due to complex interactions between the brain’s physiology and daily life stressors within relationships, the workplace, and a person’s internal emotional life. Your GWU clinician sort through all these factors with you to arrive at a plan that will be both effective and efficient in relieving your distress and restoring well-being to your state of mind, relationships, and work.

Your clinician will take the time needed to listen, understand, and attend to your priority of concerns. Your treatment will be specifically tailored to reflect your concerns and aspirations. Treatment in our department will be an educational experience in which you learn about your particular symptoms, their likely origins, and your choices in treatment strategies that can restore your well-being.

As an academic center, the GWU Dept. of Psychiatry is nationally regarded for its expertise in cultural psychiatry, humanitarian responses to disasters, and global mental health. Our faculty conduct clinical and research programs in a dozen countries, as well as in rural Appalachia and with local refugee populations in the Washington metropolitan area. Our psychiatrists are skilled in treating patients from different cultures and languages. The GWU Dept. of Psychiatry is a regional center of excellence in perinatal psychiatry and women’s mental health. Our psychiatrists have specific expertise with such problems as emotional stress of infertility or postpartum depression.

We endeavor to provide you with the best personalized care that will both relieve emotional distress and enable you to flourish at your best in your personal life, relationships, and work.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey S. Akman, MD
Interim Chair
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences