Richa Bhatia, MD

Dr. Bhatia is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is a dual Board-certified child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist, specializes in treating anxiety disorders. Her work has been cited in Time magazine and Scientific American, and her professional opinions have been quoted in media such as CNBC, The Guardian, U.S. News and World Report, The Wall Street Journal, CBS News Bay Area, WUCF-TV (PBS), and others. Dr. Bhatia is President-Elect of Northern California Psychiatric Society. She is an avid advocate of improving mental health awareness and reducing the stigma surrounding psychiatric conditions and treatments. For her work in this arena, she was awarded the 2021 Jerilyn Ross Clinician Advocate Award by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and the Marian Butterfield award by the Association of Women Psychiatrists in 2018. Her other roles include serving as Section Editor for Current Opinion in Psychiatry, a Wolters Kluwer journal, for the last 7 years. She also served as Associate Editor of Current Psychiatry for 6 years. Additionally, she is a Compassion Educator and has received Teacher's Training in Compassion Cultivation Training. She is often invited to give talks at national, regional and local conferences and organizations. In addition to the key humanistic aspects of psychiatry, she also enjoys the academic and scientific aspects- during her residency training more than 14 years ago, she scored 94th to 98th percentile among all US psychiatry residents in the Psychiatry Residency In-Training Exams, and was selected as an Academic Chief Resident as a 3rd year resident.

She takes a whole-person biopsychosocial approach, aimed at understanding the biological, psychological, social, and other factors affecting an individual’s mental health. She integrates medication management (where needed) with psychotherapy. Her psychotherapy approach is informed by various evidence-based psychotherapies such as psychodynamic therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and mindfulness-based, compassion-focused interventions. Dr. Bhatia’s other professional interests include ruling out medical conditions mimicking psychiatric disorders, effects of media and technology use in children and adolescents, mindfulness, bullying prevention, and compassion and empathy cultivation.