Holistic Healing: Dr. Omid Naim's Journey Beyond Traditional Psychiatry | CP146

As part of our esteemed guest series. I'm excited to welcome a dear friend and an incredibly insightful psychiatrist, Dr. Omid Naim.

Trained in the Western traditions, Dr. Naim has evolved to embrace a more holistic approach when it comes to mental health care. He advocates for the integration of spiritual and community-based methods, emphasizing the power of connection and shared human understanding.

So what does a more holistic approach to psychiatry look like?

How can addressing family trauma transform our mental health?

Why is the sense of community so critical for this journey?

Join us as we delve into these questions and more ...

This episode is not just a dialogue; it's a journey towards understanding the deeper facets of mental well-being and how they affect us and our family's. 

Jennifer's Takeaways:

• Mental health disorders and their causes (03:35)
• Family dynamics and mental health (06:03)
• Parenting stress and self-care for moms (12:15)
• Men's emotional struggles and parenting (18:00)
• Setting boundaries (23:17)
• Gender roles (26:13)
• Personal growth (31:42)
• Self-awareness + community building (36:01)
• Differences between pleasure and happiness (41:24)
• Self-care, and toxic shame.(46:58)

About Dr. Omid Naim

I was born in Tehran, Iran, just before the Iranian Revolution in 1978. This early childhood experience of societal terror and chaos shaped my appreciation for how unresolved trauma and grief have lifelong effects on individuals, families, and the community. Through the lens of my own family and community I came to witness firsthand how unacknowledged trauma can be neglected as the root cause of mental illness and other chronic health conditions in our society. Although I didn’t know it then, this would become the foundation of my professional life.

After completing medical school at the University of Southern California and residency training in General Adult and Child Psychiatry at USC, I began working in community mental health with high risk youth. Even though I was a classically trained Western psychiatrist, I could see that there was a need for more holistic, spiritual, and community-based approaches to health due to the limitations of the medical model. Witnessing patients with the extensive histories of abuse and neglect becoming more and more medicated – while trauma was as a root cause was ignored, and their disabilities worsened – I knew the system needed to change. This fueled my passion to find new ways to approach how we care for people and led me to further my education in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona as a Bravewell Scholar under Dr. Andrew Weil.

This time spent training in Integrative Medicine laid the foundation for creating a new model for mental health which evolved into the Hope Integrative Psychiatry Clinic. At Hope, we focused on empowering our clients to tap into their capacity to heal and recover naturally and elevating our deep needs for meaning, community, and belonging as the cornerstones for emotional well-being. This practice informed an entirely new integrative model for health and led to what would become La Maida Institute.

With the help of my wife, Alexis, and the team of dedicated professionals who made La Maida Institute grow, we were able to continue our private practice and develop the ecological approach with the support of a new communal model. Things were coming together in a profound way and we began to see that what we were really talking about was a paradigm shift in how society views health and well-being and how, through the formation of La Maida Project, we could truly make a meaningful impact. And the story keeps getting better and better!

Omid and Alexis are parents of two children. He enjoys exploring and adventuring with his family as well as connecting with others to uncover the deeper truths of life.

Connect with Dr. Omid Naim:



Website: https://lamaidaproject.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lamaidaproject/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lamaidaproject/

Meet Jennifer Kolari

Jennifer Kolari is the host of the “Connected Parenting” weekly podcast and the co-host of “The Mental Health Comedy” podcast. Kolari is a frequent guest on Nationwide morning shows and podcasts in th US and Canada. Her advice can also be found in many Canadian and US magazines such as; Today’s Parent, Parents Magazine and Canadian Family.

Kolari’s powerful parenting model is based on the neurobiology of love, teaching parents how to use compassion and empathy as powerful medicine to transform challenging behavior and build children’s emotional resilience and emotional shock absorbers.

Jennifer’s wisdom, quick wit and down to earth style help parents navigate modern-day parenting problems, offering real-life examples as well as practical and effective tools and strategies.

Her highly entertaining, inspiring workshops are shared with warmth and humour, making her a crowd-pleasing speaker with schools, medical professionals, corporations and agencies throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

One of the nation’s leading parenting experts, Jennifer Kolari, is a highly sought- after international speaker and the founder of Connected Parenting. A child and family therapist with a busy practice based in San Diego and Toronto, Kolari is also the author of Connected Parenting: How to Raise A Great Kid (Penguin Group USA and Penguin Canada, 2009) and You’re Ruining My Life! (But Not Really): Surviving the Teenage Years with Connected Parenting (Penguin Canada, 2011).