Today we’d like to introduce you to Kriste Babbitt.
Kriste, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I decided to become a psychiatrist in high school, when I became aware of my intense desire to understand the human psyche and behavior, and I determined to make practical use of it. I had a few delays and changes to my plans along the way, but ended up in psychiatry residency at Baylor College of Medicine. My creative nature, which often felt stifled during medical school, lead me to pursue studies in psychoanalytic therapy as psychiatry resident, and I began my work in private practice about 13 years ago working with both medications and therapy.
The more we work with a specific approach, the more aware we become of its limitations. As this inevitably happened for me during my initial several years in practice, I sought to expand my awareness and skillset. About 3 1/2 years ago, I co-founded an integrative psychiatry practice, “Your Wellness Practice,” which is devoted to a more holistic understanding and approach to supporting mental health. We incorporate lifestyle and functional medicine, ketamine, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, QEEG assessments, and Neurotherapy, in addition to standard medications, supplements, and psychotherapy.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Always there are struggles, which I believe are there to teach us what we need for what is to come. For me, early struggles to help my patients inspired me to advance my education in trauma-related disorders, and all of the various integrative modalities I offer now.
At times I have had to contend with my own exuberance, and to learn to contain it. I have to remind myself that I have limits, that I cannot be the best provider for everyone, and to learn when to refer. I notice that my passion to understand and to help, and my knack for connecting with others can lead me to take on too much at times. This is something I have had to really focus on addressing so that I can be available in the ways I need to be to myself, my family, my patients, and my team.
And, in addition to the challenges, there have been synchronicities and small miracles along the way, which I have been grateful to have to guide me. Usually these come in the form of encountering just the right colleague, or just the right resource, to help me when I have been stuck. Those moments can be truly reaffirming.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Your Wellness Practice?
We are an integrative psychiatry practice offering comprehensive mental health assessments and various interventions for treatment-resistant patients as well as patients who prefer a more holistic approach.
A few things set us apart. First, all primary psychiatry patients have a functional medicine evaluation to assess nutrition, gut health, inflammatory burden, and hormonal contributions to their symptoms. We also have the option for a more in-depth initial consultation that includes psychiatry, functional medicine, and a Quantitative EEG analysis. The QEEG truly allows a precision-medicine approach to diagnosis and treatment; it assesses a patient’s brainwave patterns to detect the presence of metabolic and sleep disorders, inform psychiatric diagnoses, and suggest potential prescription medication approaches. Pulled together with the functional medicine and integrative psychiatry assessments, it becomes a powerful tool to help patients who have not been able to achieve benefits elsewhere.
We also provide the most in-depth and well-contained (in my opinion) approach to ketamine-assisted psychotherapy here in the city. We really slow down our sessions to enhance the therapeutic support for patients, capitalizing on the relative open and flexible state of the mind during the sessions, to allow for more growth beyond the biological effects of the medicine itself. We can incorporate a number of different modalities into integration, including EMDR, which is a game-changer for patients with complex trauma. We are quite thoughtful in how we prepare, dose, and manage the treatments.
We have the ability to use TMS for depression, addictions, and migraine headaches, and we work closely with neurotherapists to provide neurostimulation and neurofeedback when patients can benefit from these approaches.
What are your plans for the future?
We are in the process of creating an avenue for patients to receive insurance-paid TMS services. Right now all of our services are cash-pay. Because so much of what we do is cutting-edge, insurance does not cover it. We are excited to have in-network options for some of our treatment-resistant patients to improve access to care.
Pricing:
- Comprehensive Evaluation $4000 (Psychiatry, Functional Medicine, Labs, QEEG)
- Psychiatric Intake $500
- Functional Medicine Intake $360
- Ketamine Infusion $550
- Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy $1200-$1350 (3 hours, therapy + medicine)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ywpractice.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yourwellnesspractice/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YWPractice#
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/your-wellness-practice/
