ABOUT
A psychiatrist who also does the therapy.
I am a board-certified adult psychiatrist in San Francisco. I keep a small panel, schedule longer appointments, and see patients in English and Spanish.
MY APPROACH
How I work with people whose treatment has stalled.
Most of my work is with adults who have tried something before and are not satisfied with where they landed: people who want a second opinion, people already on medication who would like to be on less of it, and people who want the therapy to be as serious as the prescribing.
I take time to understand your history, your values and what you actually want out of treatment, and we move at a pace that feels sustainable. Where it is possible, I lean on psychotherapy, sleep, and the other things that shape how you feel day to day, and I prescribe deliberately. When medication is part of your care, we revisit whether it is still helping, still necessary, and still worth what it costs you.
Because I am a physician who also provides the psychotherapy, both halves of a plan get decided in the same room. You are not carrying messages between a prescriber who has fifteen minutes and a therapist who cannot adjust a dose.
What this looks like in practice
A small panel
Because I keep the practice small, an appointment runs long enough to work through a full history and a full medication list, including what was tried years ago and set aside.
Treatment with an ending
I plan toward the point where you no longer need to see a psychiatrist. Where a condition genuinely needs long-term care, I say so early and we plan for that instead.
Two languages, no interpreter
I trained in medicine in Spanish, in Mexico, before completing my residency in the United States. The whole appointment happens in the language you choose.
Medication reviewed, not accumulated
Deprescribing and tapering are a named part of my work, not an afterthought. If you came in on a regimen you are unsure about, that is a conversation I have often.
Background
Mario A. Benitez-Lopez, MD
Founder & Psychiatrist
My residency trained me to work across the whole range of adult psychiatry rather than a single slice of it, and I came out of it with distinctions in Psychotherapy, Psychopharmacology and Collaborative Care. I trained across supportive, analytic, cognitive-behavioral, dialectical-behavioral and couples modalities, as well as CBT for insomnia, exposure and response prevention, cognitive processing therapy and hypnotherapy. My master's training at Stanford focused on clinical research and epidemiology. I am also available to clinicians who want a second opinion on a patient they are already treating.
Areas of Focus
- Psychiatric medication management
- Deprescribing and psychiatric medication tapering
- Dialectical behavior therapy
- Acceptance and commitment therapy
- CBT for insomnia
- Exposure and response prevention
- Psychodynamic psychotherapy
- Integrative behavioral couples therapy
- Spanish-language psychiatric care
Education
- Adult Psychiatry Residency, 2020-2024 – University of Washington
- MS, Clinical Research and Epidemiology – Stanford University
- MD, with honors – Universidad Autónoma de Baja California
See whether this is the right fit
Send a note about what has been tried and where it stalled, and I will follow up to arrange a time. Care is by appointment and cash-pay, and this is scheduled treatment, not crisis care.