You have probably heard the words “integrative,” “functional” and “holistic” being used to describe various medical practices. In general, the idea is that these are all different words to describe an alternative to “conventional” medicine, which focuses almost exclusively on medication based treatments. At Free Range, we prefer to use the term “holistic” to describe what we do, as it most closely approximates our approach to healing.

To best describe the difference between a Free Range psychiatrist and other types of psychiatrists, let’s use a graphic example. Let’s say that you are walking along and you step on a nail. The nail is stuck in your foot and causing you extreme pain. The pain never goes away and eventually you become depressed and hopeless about your situation. If you went to a conventional psychiatrist, they would likely tell you that your depression is caused by a “chemical imbalance” (which is a total myth) and they would prescribe an antidepressant that would likely cause all kinds of side effects.

Let’s say that next you went to a self-described “integrative psychiatrist.” While this is absolutely not true of all integrative psychiatrists, what we’ve seen from some of them is that they would continue the psychiatric medication and add something like a supplement to also help with the depression. In our experience, this approach misses the boat, because the underlying cause still hasn’t been addressed and the psychiatric medication is still doing harm.

Let’s say that you went to a self-described “functional” psychiatrist. Again, this isn’t true of all functional psychiatrists, but what we’ve seen from some of them is that they would run a bunch of expensive tests to determine the cause of the pain and depression. This is great, however, by again ignoring the “nail,” they also miss the boat!

Now, if you went to a Free Range psychiatrist, we would take a truly HOLISTIC approach and our first step would be to REMOVE THE NAIL! We would also stop the psychiatric medications which are likely making you feel worse and we would work with you to heal from the trauma of the embedded nail. Taking a truly holistic approach to healing means understanding the ROOT of the issue, and addressing it. And at Free Range Psychiatry, we don’t just address underlying causes, we address the underlying person!