Dr. Gary Spivack, MD

I met Dr Spivack after being medically evacuated to Dominion hospital. I never found anyone better than him. Don't judge him so harshly. He worked in a prison as far as I remember and that takes a toll on you. He was extremely respectful and responsible with me. I wish I could see him again because he was the only one who really helped me. He only put me on one medication. He believed everything I told him about my trauma. I hope he can remember what he was like. I'm a graduate student too now and have a boyfriend but what really messed me up was group homes and PRS!

I met Dr Spivack thirty years ago, when I was a young teenager. I had been abused by a neighbor, which presented behaviorally as "acting out." Dr Spivack's treatment model, then as (apparently) now was a course of antidepressants, which potentiated a psychotic episode and a hospital stay. Conveniently, he is on the board of a hospital for troubled children and adolescents. It was only after a total fluke led me to find a psychiatrist outside of the DMV that I got better; my new doctor said "well, he isn't getting better on meds and they have side effects, so let's take him off of them and see what happens." As you might expect, without medication, a competent trauma therapist was able to help me with the underlying cause of the "acting out." Today I'm in graduate school, with a great girlfriend and a mostly repaired life. But the process would have been accelerated and I would have had a fuller life had Dr Spivack not been a part of the equation to begin with. Avoid.