My Practice

Meredith Cary, PsyD
The Palladium in Dupont Circle
1325 Eighteenth Street, NW #209
Washington, DC 20036
(703) 447-8011
DrCary@mac.com

Specialty

The focus is on adults with anxiety or mood disorders, stress-related conditions or issues, and management of chronic medical illnesses, using time-limited cognitive/behavioral therapy (CBT). Please use the mind/body interactive tool at http://www.apahelpcenter.org/ to view how stress can affect physical health.
CBT is a structured, goal-based process in which people learn to use coping skills to boost their resilience & control of their emotional, behavioral, and physical reactions to stress. Extensive evidence of positive treatment outcomes exists in a variety of areas in which Dr. Cary has experience – as a teacher, a clinical researcher, and a clinician in academic health centers.

♣ Mental Health (depression, anxiety, anger, panic, phobias, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and self-defeating behavior under stress)
♣ Health Risk Behavior (change to healthy lifestyle habits, smoking cessation)
♣ Physical Conditions (pain, fatigue, memory, insomnia)
♣ Chronic Illness Self-Management (changes in function, relationships, self image, moods, values & other quality of life issues)
♣ Well-Being (increasing life satisfaction & fulfillment)

Practice Information

♣ Appointments are on Friday & Saturday.
♣ The initial evaluation is an hour. Therapy sessions are 50 minutes.
♣ The fee is collected at each session (cash or check). Those insured for mental health services (codes 90801 and 90806) by an out-of-network provider may get reimbursed. Dr. Cary is NOT a provider with insurers or Medicare.
♣ If CBT is an appropriate therapy, many specific goals can usually be addressed in brief periods, such as 6 to 15 sessions. However, this can only be assessed individually.
♣ Office location: 3 blocks from Dupont Circle Metro (South), between Mass Ave. & N

Background

As Assistant Professor, USUHS (Go To: Medical & Clinical Psychology Dept, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences), Dr. Cary teaches a 2 year course, using actors as patients, to help pre-doctoral psychology students gain expertise in motivational & cognitive/behavioral therapy at the National Capital Area Medical Simulation Center. For the previous decade, she was a full time Assistant Professor, Behavioral Medicine, Georgetown University Medical Center, where she provided CBT with patients in several Psychiatry Clinics (Anxiety Disorders, Mood Disorders & Medical Illness) as well as patients from the Pain Clinic, Sleep Disorders Center, Rheumatology, Internal Medicine, and ObGyn. As a faculty member of the Chronic Pain & Fatigue Research Center, she helped develop & test treatment protocols for managing chronic illness using the web & teleconferencing with remote patients. In clinical research, Dr. Cary led 6-session CBT groups in which people with chronic pain & fatigue were 3 times more likely to gain significant function than controls – at 1 year post treatment (Improving Physical Functional Status in Patients with Fibromyalgia: A Brief Cognitive Behavioral Intervention; Journal of Rheumatology 2002; 29:1280-6). As well, Dr. Cary has expertise in the practice of a new area, positive psychology, which emphasizes a person’s strengths to increase life satisfaction & fulfillment. Also, she’s developing a new non-profit health directory on the Web that empowers health consumers to be more knowledgeable about self-care by helping them find the scientifically proven products & practices - as well as the providers that employ them.