Houston Methodist Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health

The Houston Methodist Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health is dedicated to the treatment of the underlying causes of psychiatric conditions. Our team of clinicians and faculty helps patients thrive by integrating a team-based structure, clinical expertise, and medical innovation.

As the only Houston-based psychiatric treatment option attached to a nationally recognized hospital, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health can take on patients with comorbidities and the most complex presentation of psychiatric symptoms. With hospital, residential and outpatient levels of care — and a full range of medical services — our team offers a rare continuum of care model unlike any other center, nationally.

With access to clinical trials, promising new treatments from enhanced therapies, and the latest in pharmacologic and psychotherapeutics treatments, our team strives to integrate education, training and applied research across the various levels of our clinical services.

Our Team

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health is a growing department with active collaborations locally and nationally, including Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, Texas Children’s Hospital, University of Texas Health Sciences Center (UT Houston), University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina and industry partners.

Aiming beyond symptom reduction, the faculty and clinicians in our department strive to reinforce and enhance wellness, connection and purpose in patients, as well as to promote scientific understanding of holistic factors across the mental health community. Our team’s long-term aspiration is to see behavioral health engagement embedded within and across all medical subspecialties.

Our multidisciplinary behavioral health faculty and clinicians include senior-level psychologists and psychiatrists, art therapists, music therapists, licensed professional counselors, social workers and research scientists, as well as experts in addiction, neurology, obsessive-compulsive disorder, personality disorders, suicidal behavior and self-injury, chronic pain and illness, trauma-related disorders and interpersonal problems.

Our Faculty ➝  Our Physicians ➝

9

Peer-Reviewed Publications (since 2022)

2,922

MD/AP Consults in 2023

9,432

Psych/Therapy Sessions in 2023

2X

Patient Virtual Health Volume in 2023

Our Research

The team’s current endeavors seek to better understand the biological underpinnings of psychiatric illness, to more effectively intervene with vulnerable populations, and to utilize technological and computational advances to develop more accessible tools for diagnosing and treating psychiatric illness, such as the study of:

  • the utility of multimodal biomarkers to diagnose psychiatric illness and predict response to treatment, such as quantitative sensory testing as a measure of central sensitization, gut microbiome-based markers of depression and anxiety, and response to treatment;
  • the reduction of maternal morbidity and mortality by identifying underserved and at-risk populations and providing preventive interventions at key points in the prenatal period;
  • the efficacy of novel devices to quantify psychological phenomena (e.g., consciousness) and to intervene at home using state-of-the-art neuromodulation technologies (e.g., transcranial rotating permanent spinning magnets).
     
In Pursuit of Biomarkers for Diseases of the Mind
Our researchers turn toward the gut microbiome for biomarkers predictive of the severity of anxiety and depression.
Reducing Psychiatric Illness in Perinatal Period
An equity-informed model of care for pregnant women may address preventable consequences of PPI.
Functional Rehabilitation
An integrated treatment model for patients with complex physical and psychiatric conditions.
Brain Stimulation & Pain
Combination of brief cognitive restructuring intervention and tDCS over left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in affecting pain tolerance.
Publications

Education & Training

The Houston Methodist Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health is a teaching hospital where student practitioners, under expert supervision, learn in real clinical circumstances. Our medical education is open to all academic systems in the Houston area, including Texas A&M, Baylor College of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, University of Houston, and University of Houston-Clear Lake. 

Our team offers medical residencies, psychiatry fellowship programs, a post-doctoral fellowship in clinical psychology and internships for licensed professional counselors. We also plan to launch fellowships in various psychiatric subspecialties, including consult liaison psychiatry and neuropsychiatry.

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health holds monthly CME-granting grand rounds to learn what our experts see in the clinical space. 
Behavioral Neurology & Neuropsychiatry Fellowship
Fellows train in the diagnosis and management of a variety of brain and cognitive conditions.

 

Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Fellowship
Further education, instruction and mentorship for newly graduated Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners.
Counseling Postgraduate Program
Supervised outpatient experience for post-graduate clinicians in counseling and related fields.
Postdoctoral Fellowship in Clinical Psychology
Skills to treat adults with psychiatric illnesses and medical comorbidities in an academic medical setting. 
For Patients

For Patients

 

Houston Methodist offers unique programs and services that address complex mental, behavioral and medical conditions to help patients function in everyday life.

Learn more about our psychiatry care

Department of Psychiatry News

In The News — Recent Press
In The News — Recent Press
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