ABOUT ME
A DEDICATED PSYCHIATRIST
Hi, I’m Dr Kamini. I’m a proud mother of two amazing little girls, a dedicated psychiatrist and a staunch wellness advocate. I’m on a constant quest to improve the wellness of my family and my patients and to separate fads from real, science-based interventions.
I’ve always fought to end the stigma towards mental illness and seeking psychiatric help. Too often my patients are judged for struggling with their illness and their suffering is dismissed as just 'something in their head' or something they should 'get over' on their own.
My foremost priority is your wellness and working with not just you, but the allies in your life to put you on the road to recovery. YOU will always be in the driver’s seat of your recovery journey. My job is to guide and support you whenever you feel like giving up.
Mental illness is real, it is not something that is anyone's fault or doing. And help is often closer at hand than you realise. I want you to know that my office is a safe haven, no matter who you are or what your story is.
MY BACKGROUND
TWELVE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
I'm a passionate and patient centered psychiatrist with 12 years of experience. I am committed to providing compassionate, holistic and evidence-based care to my patients.
Through the course of my career, I’ve gained extensive experience treating patients in the inpatient wards, forensic wards, outpatient clinic, child and adolescent clinic, emergency department and high dependency unit at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH). Here, I noticed that there were patients who were not responding to conventional psychotropics or had adverse effects to them. Thus, I set off on a journey to expand my armamentarium and create a unique evidence-based practice to address my patients' concerns beyond the use of prescription medicine only.
I trained in mindfulness-based therapies, relationship counselling, nutritional psychiatry and functional medicine and learned that a plethora of other issues usually lie at the root cause of mental illness. Through this I was able to curate a treatment plan that incorporates holistic aspects into the traditional psychiatric treatment plan. This plan prioritises your wellness and working with not just you, but the allies in your life to put you on the road to recovery. YOU will always be in the driver’s seat of your recovery journey. My job is to guide and support you whenever you feel like giving up.
I look forward to becoming a partner in your path to mental wellness.
MY CREDENTIALS
I practised for 12 years as a medical doctor in the general medical, surgical and psychiatry departments of several public hospitals (National University Hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore General Hospital and Alexandra Hospital) before working as a psychiatrist at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH).
I graduated with an MBBS degree from the National University of Singapore and obtained the Membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK). I am a Fellow of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore, an accredited psychiatrist with the Specialist Accreditation Board, Ministry of Health Singapore and a registered psychiatrist with the Singapore Medical Council. I am trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness based Cognitive Therapy(MBCT), Mindful Motherhood, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i) and the Bringing Baby Home program by the Gottman Institute. I’ve also attended training in nutritional and environmental medicine.
GETTING TO THE
ROOT CAUSE
Depression, panic attacks, anxiety, insomnia and other mental disorders are symptoms of a larger problem and we have to get to the root cause to treat it properly. Imagine this; if you had a splinter in your foot, the first thing you would see is blood. If you put a band-aid on it, it would stop the bleeding for a while but then the pain and bleeding would start again because the splinter hadn’t been removed. But the band-aid is still required to stop the bleeding. However without removing the splinter, there will not be a permanent resolution for the problem. Medications are like the band aid, they alleviate the symptoms and provide patients with the relief they need while we search for and treat the root causes, such as high levels of stress, nutrient poor diet, hormonal imbalance, psychological and social stressors. After removing the root cause, we still need to work on coping mechanisms. Coping mechanisms are like the proper footwear, that prevent you from getting another splinter. And that is where mindfulness and cognitive therapy, nutritional and lifestyle advice factor in. Together we will create a fail proof plan to get you well and KEEP you well.
DR KAMINI'S
BLUEPRINT FOR
MENTAL WELLNESS
