Here at Ballen Medical & Wellness, we take an integrative approach to mental health that thoughtfully combines the best of traditional psychiatry with evidence-based holistic treatment options, natural therapies, and lifestyle interventions.
Similar to functional medicine, we go beyond just symptom relief and focus on the underlying root causes of your depression, anxiety, trauma, or other mental health condition to bring you long-lasting relief and optimal well-being.
Traditional psychiatry often focuses solely on prescribing medications to manage symptoms. But for many patients, this limited approach fails to provide full relief.
Integrative psychiatry takes a more holistic view of patients, looking at mind and body as interconnected systems that must be treated together. After all, something like depression could be caused by many different underlying factors, from the stress of a toxic relationship or work environment to a vitamin deficiency or an untreated illness. Integrative medicine takes all of these factors into account by looking at your mental, physical, emotional, and even spiritual health together.
By combining traditional psychiatry like medication management with evidence-based complementary and alternative therapies, integrative and holistic gives you the most comprehensive and effective care possible.
At Ballen Medical & Wellness, we offer compassionate and holistic mental health services for children, teens, and adolescents aged 8 and older. Our integrative approach combines psychiatry and therapies such as play therapy and talk therapy to help children overcome difficulties and build valuable life skills. We create a safe, non-judgmental space for children to receive care and support caregivers in setting goals and monitoring progress.
For ages 13-18, our teen and adolescent therapy services are designed to help navigate challenges including depression, anxiety, trauma, self-harm, bullying, divorce, grief, identity issues, unhealthy behaviors such as substance abuse or eating disorders, and other high-risk activities. Signs indicating therapy may be needed include mood swings, withdrawal, impulsivity, academic issues, violence, or engagement in risky sexual practices.
If you’re struggling to find a medication routine that works with your mental health, you’re not alone. Trial and error with different drugs and different doctors can leave anyone feeling frustrated and hopeless. Sometimes the answer isn’t more medication — it’s an integrative approach that goes deeper than traditional mental health plans can.
Taking an Integrative approach to Medication Management incorporates a whole-person view to mental wellness. Instead of forcing you to choose between traditional psychiatric care and more holistic therapies, an integrative plan offers you the best of both approaches. This creates a more comprehensive level of care and gives you more choices as a patient.
Our team will conduct a thorough initial assessment and evaluation with you by discussing your medical history, current symptoms, and any previous treatments or therapies you may have tried.
Based on your evaluation, we’ll explain the different treatment options available and discuss the potential benefits and considerations of each. This is a collaborative process — we’ll work with you to find the approach that best aligns with your preferences and treatment goals.
Follow-up visits may be recommended to monitor your progress and provide ongoing support. They are typically set every 1 to 3 months depending on your psychiatric needs and/or the type of medication being managed. Based on your feedback, we’ll also make any necessary adjustments to your treatment plan. Our team will be there for you every step of the way to ensure your optimal well-being and long-term success. As much as we like to have you at our clinic, our promise to you is we’ll work as hard as we can to reduce your need for us.
Our team is passionate about helping you feel your best and reach your full potential, whether that means working through a crisis, deepening your understanding of yourself, or managing mood disorders like depression and anxiety.
Dr. Ballen is one of Denver’s preeminent integrative mental health experts. In 2012, she became the first prescriber to provide ketamine treatment for depression and mood to the Denver area.
Many of her success stories are complex cases where patients have tried different options — sometimes for years — but can’t find treatment that brings enough relief or results. This includes patients with co-occurring symptoms such as depression and addiction, as well as patients who’ve had difficulty finding an accurate diagnosis.
Ben Egbers is a board-certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner based in Bozeman, Montana. Upon earning a BA in Psychology and German in 2000 from Western Washington University, he began his career in mental health serving as a case manager in the public health sector for three years. After working in various sectors outside of healthcare, he returned to academia and earned his Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2011 from Washington State University.
Throughout his nursing career, he found that his most memorable experiences with patients were those conversations about their emotional struggles and promoting mental health, which prompted him to pursue psychiatric nursing roles in residential and inpatient settings, with both adolescent and adult populations. In 2018, he began pursuing his Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from the University of Washington, where he completed his clinical training, and graduated in March of 2021. Ben was awarded board certification as a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner by the American Nurses Credentialing Center in April 2021 and joined Shodair Outpatient Services in June 2021.
Over the past few years, while gaining experience practicing primarily with children and adolescents, he recognized his desire to work with patients across the lifespan. He finds the metaphor of climbing a mountain to be particularly relevant, with respect to mental health, and has found the mountains and the natural world to be a profound teacher of life’s lessons.
Enjoy a free, no-pressure phone consultation with our ketamine care team. Just pick a time on our calendar or give us a call.
