Sidney Edsall, MD
Integrative Psychiatrist
San Francisco CA
We engage our clients in a healing journey. First, we create a safe and trusting therapeutic connection with our clients. We support our clients by engaging with them on an emotional level and also on a somatic level. For those who are unfamiliar with the term Somatic therapy, this is a type of psychotherapy that incorporates the body into the healing work; recognizing that our emotions are not manifesting just in our head, but throughout our body. For example, we ‘feel’ heartbreak with an ache in our heart, and we ‘know deep in our bones’ when we just can’t trust someone, or we feel it ‘in our gut’ when it’s time to quit a job, because just ‘can’t stomach’ the work anymore. When we are practicing somatic therapy, we are helping our clients cultivate a felt sense of their body, and identifying where they may be experiencing pain, tightness, constriction in the body and then we work with individuals to release emotional pain that is stored within our bodies. I sometimes incorporate meditation into our work too to cultivate stillness and also acupuncture to help remove energetic blockages which cause energetic stagnation, pain, and discomfort in the body.
I’m a psychiatrist and I have a group practice in San Francisco, called Quantum Integral Healing Arts with a strong focus in psychedelic assisted therapy. We are an integrative and multi-disciplinary practice and our team includes myself, 2 psychiatric nurse practitioners a psychologist, an acupuncturist and a massage therapist. I have also co-founded a nonprofit called Open Mind Collective (OMC). OMC's mission is to work with underserved populations with psychedelic medicines, continue research with psychedelic medicines, and train clinicians who are working with psychedelic medicines. I also have participated in the research with MAPS, Phase 2 and Phase 3 studies of MDMA for PTSD and I'm also a study therapist for a research trial using 5-MeO-DMT for Treatment-Resistant Depression.
I completed my psychiatric residency training at Stanford in 2006 and ever since I've been working primarily with individuals struggling with depression and the effects of trauma. I spent 5 years working with US Army soldiers in Europe which is where I first began learning about Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine. The soldiers I was working with were experiencing both the physical and emotional effects of trauma. The standard of care was not effective in treating their symptoms and so we instead added other modalities of treatment, such as acupuncture, yoga, meditation, group and individual psychotherapy, tapping, and EMDR therapy and then we saw real improvements in their symptoms. It was amazing to see such dramatic changes for the better when all of this care was made available to our patients.
Since returning to San Francisco in 2016, I've been dedicated to building an integrative mental health clinic incorporating these treatment modalities and in addition, utilizing Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP). Adding KAP has transformed my clients' healing potential in profound ways. I've been honored to witness so much healing within our clinic!
We also are preparing our clinical team to provide other psychedelic treatments as they become available. For example, we are a participating research site for 5-MeO-DMT for Treatment-Resistant Depression and Psilocybin for Major Depressive Disorder and we anticipate MDMA will be available once made legal in late 2024.
If someone is interested in working within our team, we offer full psychiatric care in addition to our specialty services. This includes psychiatric diagnostic assessments and ongoing care and management of psychiatric medications. All of the clinicians are skilled in psychotherapies, to include psychodynamic therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) skills, mindfulness training, and somatic therapy. In addition, some clinicians are trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. If you are coming to Quantum specifically for KAP work, we do recommend committing to a series of 3-6 sessions to maximize the treatment benefits and longevity of its impact in your life. All of our KAP work is done alongside integration sessions to support this intention. In addition, we periodically offer a Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) 8 wk group course to facilitate meditation practice as a component of treatment for anxiety and depression. We also offer massage, ketamine assisted massage, Chinese medicine assessments and acupuncture treatments.