How We Can Help

Children and Families

When problems impact a child's success at school, interactions with friends, or functioning at home, families will often seek assistance from the Portteus Psychiatry Group.  We will meet with a child and his/her family to listen to their concerns, and will work with them to identify areas of success and areas for improvement.  This assessment includes interviewing a patient and family and determining a diagnosis, followed by a treatment plan which may include individual psychotherapy, family therapy, behavior strategies, school interventions, and/or medications. 

Dr. Portteus and his staff understand the questions, concerns and emotions that families often experience when trying to make the important decision to seek professional medical attention for their child's mental health.  The Portteus Psychiatry Group is committed to helping parents understand the risks and benefits of various treatment options and we educate parents about the clinical evidence which support our treatment recommendations. We strive to develop a positive, productive treatment relationship with each of our patients and provide ongoing treatment as needed.  This type of collaborative relationship with families often includes working with primary care physicians, psychologists, diagnosticians, therapists, and school personnel.   

Adults

In addition to work with youth, we also provide assessment, diagnosis and treatment for adults.  Many adults seek the expertise of a child and adolescent psychiatrist due to the additional training and experience with development and family systems.  Adults with ADHD often appreciate a child psychiatrist's experience with medication to treat this condition.  A child psychiatrist is first fully trained to treat adults and then receives additional training to work with children and families.  Dr. Portteus maintains active caseload of adult patients, and each see some for psychotherapy and others for medication management alone.  We frequently gets referral with-in families, and serves as a family psychiatrist, treating children, siblings, parents, and sometimes grandparents.  Similarly, our psychotherapists are experienced with working with adult issues related to career stress, marriage, parenting, divorce, blended families, care-giving for aging parents, grief and loss, etc.  Just as there are different medications that help patients for particular mood disorders, such as depression or anxiety, there are also many different approaches with psychotherapy.  Our providers find the most success in providing individualized and customized options for patients based on the initial assessment and evaluation

Appointments

Initial pediatric evaluations are usually scheduled for 1 or 1.5 hours and initial adult evaluations are 50 minutes to 1 hour.  Follow-up consultations are scheduled for 20 or 40 minutes.  Psychotherapy appointments are scheduled for 40, 60, or 90 minutes.  

We are now offering some appointments by video conferencing and telephone in addition to in-office consultation.  

Visit our Info For Patients page, click on the envelope icon to email us, or call 214-550-3367 to schedule an appointment.