About

Dr. Jingna Zhao

Medical

Hello! I'm Dr. Jingna Zhao, a board-certified psychiatrist and family medicine physician.

In my experience working with medically complex patients, I am intimately aware of how emotional stress directly impacts physical health and how certain diseases can cause psychiatric symptoms.

Women's Mental Health

Women often get their concerns brushed off and learn to internalize their struggles, missing out on important diagnoses and treatment opportunities. Get your concerns taken seriously the first time when you speak with a specialist in women's mental health who has experienced it firsthand.

I have personally experienced the grief, anger, and despair that comes with infertility and recurrent miscarriages and am passionate about helping other women understand that it is not their fault and that they will feel hope and joy again.

Minority Mental Health

Many minority patients have to overcome the extra influences from their family and cultural community in order to seek mental healthcare for themselves. This is on top of experiencing systemic racism and conflicts with self vs perceived identity.

Minority patients also get disproportionately diagnosed with more severe conditions or get their concerns dismissed due to implicit bias. Do not risk getting inaccurately labeled with a disorder or told that something is normal for you when it is not. Get assessed by someone who specializes in treating minority mental health.

Nutritional Psychiatry and Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction

Trained in the latest gut-brain research, I completed MGH Certification in Nutrition and Mental Health to develop evidence-based treatments of mental health conditions with food as medicine. 

I specialize in translating the science and research on the brain-gut and mind-body connection into bringing relief for physical and emotional symptoms. 

While finding the right medications can be life changing for many of my patients, I have found that people with the worst physical symptoms tend to also be the most sensitive to medication side effects. 

Nobody wants to rely on medications for the rest of their lives, which is why I am enthusiastic about using psychotherapy, behavioral modification, nutrition, and other alternative therapies to achieve sustainable . Personalized and progressive nutritional strategies can optimize your gut microbiome, brain chemistry, inflammation, and even your genetics. 

Healthcare Professionals

Your career is important but it is not more important than your happiness, and you should not have to choose. Becoming a professional is comes with immense sacrifice, but it does not mean you have to suffer anxiety, depression, trauma, addiction, and burnout on your own. 

You deserve treatment and you will be a better doctor, a better therapist, a better helper when you are supported. Treatment does not only mean medication. It can mean exploring options you may not be aware are available to you, discovering and addressing the various sources of your distress, and using your strengths to your advantage. 

I offer extra privacy measures upon request. Do not be afraid of damaging your career by seeking mental healthcare.

Hope

Everyone has strengths. Everyone makes progress. Everyone can find hope.

Favorite Quotes

When "I" becomes "We", Illness becomes Wellness

Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.

- Niccolo Machiavelli

Do not let perfection get in the way of progress

Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.

- Margaret Mead

Nothing is as bad or as good as it seems

Ideologies separate us.

Dreams and anguish bring us together.

- Eugene Ionesco