Our Team
We have created a practice that can embrace the rich and complex lived experience of every patient we meet. We have a deep grounding in the science behind psychiatry, and also understand that providing personalized medical care remains an art.
Dr. Tony Charuvastra, M.D.
Dr. Charuvastra is board certified in both adult and child & adolescent psychiatry, and has been practicing psychiatry for over 20 years. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Brown University. He completed his adult psychiatry training at UCLA and his child and adolescent psychiatric training at the NYU Child Study Center, where he was also chief resident. Following his clinical training, he completed a two year NIMH post-doctoral research fellowship at NYU studying trauma and resilience and a school-based suicide prevention program.
He has extensive clinical experience in a wide range of settings. While in medical school, he worked in hospital and prison-based HIV clinics while studying addiction. At UCLA, he worked in specialty clinics for Women's Health (reproductive psychiatry), Bipolar Disorders, Schizophrenia, Family Therapy, Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depression, and Cognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Depression. At NYU, he developed expertise in treating Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional and Disruptive behavior, Depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Anxiety in children and adolescents.
He has received several awards, including: the Isaac Ray award from Brown Medical School, the Rock Sleyster award from the AMA, the Shirley Hatos 21st Century prize from UCLA, and fellowships with the American Psychoanalytic Association and the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. He has published numerous scientific papers in the areas of Addiction, Medical Ethics, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). He has consulted for private schools in Manhattan on suicide prevention, post-suicide grief support and recovery, and resilience.
Presently, he is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at NYU-Langone Medical Center in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and an adviser at NYU’s Gallatin School. He teaches topics in child psychiatry to residents, and an undergraduate class called “Children of Divorce.”
Dr. Douglas Luce, M.D.
Dr. Luce is board certified in both adult and child & adolescent psychiatry and has been practicing psychiatry for over 20 years. He received his BS in psychology from Brown University, completed post-baccalaureate medical studies at Harvard, and received his medical degree from the NYU School of Medicine. He completed his adult and child & adolescent psychiatry training at NYU. While at Brown, he was a part of the Yale-Brown OCD study group which developed key methodologies currently used in the treatment of OCD, including the YBOCS, and identifying the efficacy of SSRIs in OCD treatment. Since then, he has contributed to publications in multiple fields including OCD, Bipolar Disorder, and addiction.
He is very experienced in treating ADHD, major depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, OCD, and traumatic stress disorders. He has won awards for his research and has served as a consultant for private equity groups interested in the development of novel treatments for mental illness.
Dr. Ilana Palgi, Psy.D.
Dr. Palgi received her doctorate from Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She was the Director of the Center for Child Development in one of our city hospitals where she developed her expertise in providing developmental guidance and parenting support for families, working within the fields of trauma and infant and early childhood mental health. She is also formally trained as a yoga teacher. She has used her yoga training to create a wellness program for early childhood centers, and she incorporates principles from yoga (breath, movement, meditation) into her psychotherapy practice with clients of all ages.
Dr. Palgi has extensive training in attachment theory and its applications to therapy. Throughout her career, she has continued to learn about different theoretical perspectives and approaches to treatment. This includes experiential therapy, family systems, cognitive, interpersonal, dyadic, and mind-body treatments for anxiety, depression, and trauma in children and adults. She has been part of the AEDP Institute (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) for 10 years, an orientation to psychotherapy that is rooted in affective neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology, and developmental psychology. It draws on attachment theory, emotion theory, body-based approaches to care, and studies of transformation.