Psychiatry & Medication Management in the South Bay

We see psychiatry patients at our office on Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa Beach, close to Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, El Segundo, Torrance, and Palos Verdes, and by telehealth across California.

Who you'll work with

Psychiatric care here is provided by Dr. Alexander Sones, MD, double board-certified in Psychiatry and in Forensic Psychiatry. He earned his medical degree at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha, completed his residency at UCLA's Semel Institute with a year at Harbor-UCLA, and went on to a fellowship in forensic psychiatry. He served as Chief Resident twice, of Inpatient Psychiatry and of Forensic Psychiatry, and holds a faculty appointment in psychiatry at UCLA. More about Dr. Sones and our clinical team.

Most psychiatrists no longer do therapy

This is the part worth knowing before you book anywhere. Over the last three decades, psychiatry in the United States has largely separated from psychotherapy. The share of psychiatrist visits that included psychotherapy fell from 44.4% in 1996 to 21.6% by 2016, and in one analysis of visits between 2010 and 2016, 53% of psychiatrists provided no psychotherapy at all (Mojtabai and Olfson; Columbia University).

Source: Columbia University Department of Psychiatry.

That shift is why so many people describe psychiatry as a fifteen-minute medication check. It is not a failure of individual doctors so much as what reimbursement rewarded. But it does mean the person adjusting your medication often has limited insight into what is actually happening in your life.

Dr. Sones offers psychotherapy alongside medication management. In his own words, the role of a psychiatrist extends well beyond prescribing. He also treats lifestyle intervention as part of treatment rather than an afterthought, and co-authored a chapter on behavioral change strategies in Lifestyle Psychiatry, published by American Psychiatric Publishing.

What people come to us for

• A thorough psychiatric evaluation and an accurate diagnosis
• Ongoing medication management with real follow-up
• Depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and ADHD
• Psychotic disorders and other severe presentations
• Addiction and co-occurring conditions
• A second opinion after treatment that has not worked
• Medication care that stays in step with therapy

Coordination that is structural, not aspirational

Every practice says its providers communicate. What makes it true here is that your therapist and your psychiatrist work within the same practice, on the same record, with your authorization. When a medication change matters to what you are working on in therapy, that is a conversation rather than a request faxed into a void.

It also means the sequence can be right. Sometimes the answer is testing first, because attention problems have several possible explanations and treating the wrong one costs a year. Sometimes it is therapy first and medication later, or not at all.

What to expect

Care begins with a free 15-minute consultation to confirm psychiatry is the right starting point. From there, the initial evaluation is a full conversation about your history rather than a symptom checklist, and if medication is appropriate it is managed with regular follow-up and adjusted deliberately.

We are an outpatient practice and we do not provide emergency or after-hours psychiatric services. If you are in crisis, call or text 988 or go to your nearest emergency room.