Psychiatric ailments are multi-dimensional and often come with various burdens weighing them down – there’s not just the disease, there’s stigma, lack of accessible or adequate healthcare facilities, cluelessness for laymen on the best approach to handle the situation, and a ‘market’ of services that’s increasingly difficult to even understand (let alone navigate).
That’s why you need a psychiatrist who understands more than just the ailment, he understands where you’re coming from, and knows why what he provides, needs to be more than just a ‘marketed service’ – it needs to be ‘care’ for you and your condition in every aspect of the treatment.
For Dr. Lancer Naghdechi of Lancer Health, this is a non-negotiable. He says, “It’s not just about a prescription, as a psychiatrist you are treating a ‘person’, not a ‘diagnosis’.”
Sans this multifaceted care for you and your condition, you can be sure that no matter how much you pay you’re just paying for a prescription and being treated for your diagnosis.
Even though Dr. Naghdechi’s holistic style of treatment needs to be the norm rather than the exception, patients are often so touched by Naghdechi’s empathetic, concierge style of treatment that his private practice has grown exponentially in a short span of 4 years by word of mouth alone.
Unfortunately, by the time some patients reach him, they’re exhausted with their experience of navigating the mental healthcare sector. This lack of accessibility to good mental healthcare deeply disturbs Dr. Naghdechi, making him want to go all out in his service to his patients, even extending to handholding them through much more than what his professional call of duty requires.
A better alternative does exist
From psychiatric sessions where patients feel disconnected, or worse, unheard, with Dr. Naghdechi they find someone who treats them like family, wants to know everything about them, is literally just a phone call away, and even does home visits.
Dr. Naghdechi believes that these visits allow him to connect with families in a way that traditional office visits cannot, helping him understand his patients’ daily lives and environment.
Be it in his clinic or in the home visits, his entire focus is on creating and offering a warm and understanding environment where patients feel comfortable expressing their thoughts, experiences, and concerns.
As he puts it, he “treats the whole person”, therefore, sometimes his visits are long, involving a very thorough evaluation to arrive at a detailed history of the patient. “Sometimes we spend an hour going over the family tree alone”, he explains.
Moreover, as a patient one could have other concurrent physical health issues as well. To truly understand the totality and the root of their problems, here’s a psychiatrist who would go the extra mile to work closely with everyone involved in their care — teachers, pediatricians, therapists, and other health specialists if so required.
Psychiatry isn’t just pill-pushing
Mental health is more than just about your current mental state. Everything influences it – from your diet and exercise regime, to your daily routine and overall lifestyle.
This is why it’s crucial that a psychiatrist treating you has a thorough understanding of his subject and does not confuse symptoms vs syndromes and can diagnose a disease against what might be totally normal.
Dr. Naghdechi believes that the approach to treatment has to be accordingly tailored for every patient, going beyond mere pill-pushing.
Therefore at Lancer Health, every patient is treated with an integrative approach to mental healthcare, using just what’s necessary in each case, whether that means addressing a patient’s diet and exercise regime, making suggestions for lifestyle modification, providing therapy, or prescribing or deprescribing medicines as per the patient’s condition.
He explains, “Combining empathy, common sense, and the latest research in evidence-based therapies, I aim to provide a comprehensive approach to mental health. I believe in addressing the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual aspects of well-being, fostering the body and mind’s innate ability to heal and self-regulate.”
In fact, he adds, “I often find myself de-prescribing unnecessary or wrong medicines more than I prescribe new ones”.
Combining empathy with exhaustive training
Despite his deeply empathetic approach, Dr. Lancer’s drive to be a good psychiatrist is not just centered on empathy. He combines that with a formidable knowledge-base, training and qualifications.
Dr. Lancer is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, holding double board certifications in Psychiatry and Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. He is licensed to practice in New York, New Jersey, and Florida.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from Rosalind Franklin University of Medical Sciences in Chicago. He attended medical school at Western University of Health Sciences in Los Angeles and completed his Psychiatry Residency at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
During his residency, he pursued a Fellowship in Psychoanalysis at the Psychoanalytic Association of New York, affiliated with NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Following this, he completed specialized training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Northwell Health/ Zucker Hillside Hospital, also known as Long Island Jewish Medical Center/ Cohen Children’s Medical Center.
Dr. Naghdechi keeps his expertise up-to-date by regularly making scholarly contributions to esteemed publications. His work is featured in several well-respected journals and textbooks, including The Handbook of Wellness Medicine (2020), The Textbook of Clinical Sexual Medicine (2017), Technological Addictions (2022), the International Neuropsychiatric Disease Journal, the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, and even the Harvard Review of Psychiatry, amongst others.
And he’s able to do all this because he always wanted to be a psychiatrist, for as long as he can remember.
As he sums up, “This is a passion for me, not just a job.”
For more information, visit Lancer Health.
