Peak Vista Community Health Centers - Health Center at Myron Stratton

Dr. Deane S. Berson, M.D. has over thirty-five years of private practice in Colorado Springs working with all ages, individuals, couples, and families. He does not follow the trend among most psychiatrists to largely prescribe medicine(s) and do little if any therapy with the patient (though they sometimes recommend the patient receive therapy elsewhere). Dr. Berson views medicine as usually a last resort and therapy as usually the first resort. If Dr. Berson is to help a person learn how to replace pills with skills, he must first get to know that person. This is accomplished by having fifty minute meetings with them, usually once a week. When necessary he will prescribe medicine but only in the context of therapy. Like good detectives, the patient and Dr. Berson team up to learn how to track the patients difficulties to their cause. For example, consider the student who believes she is a failure if she gets any grade lower than an A. If she gets a B, she may well (generate chemicals in such a way as to) feel depressed. Through therapy she can learn that her worth and future are not determined by that one B. She can learn that probably for years she has unintentionally caused herself needless depression and anxiety by believing the excessive scoldings coming from within whenever she fell short of her all-or-nothing standards. In his experience, once people learn to identify and shed their self-defeating ways of thinking and acting, the great majority are no longer depressed, anxious, fearful, etc. Any presumed chemical imbalance (if it existed at all) is gone because people are no longer thinking and acting in ways that (generate the chemicals that) cause them to feel depressed and anxious.