About Us

Welcome to Peninsula Mental Health and the office of Catherine Reed, MD!

We opened our doors in March, 2018 and are currently accepting new patients.

Our Mission

To provide excellent psychiatric treatment focusing on a collaborative approach to patient care using up-to-date standard practices of medicine in a welcoming, safe environment.

Our Location

We are situated in the Peninsula region of the Bay Area.

About Catherine Reed, MD

I am a Board-Certified Physician with over 23 years of experience in the field of Adult Psychiatry. I provide psychiatric evaluations, psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, and lifestyle modification to treat issues including depression, anxiety, OCD, and Bipolar Disorders. I have additional expertise in Maternal Mental Health, treating people before and during pregnancy, and in the post-partum period.

After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I completed medical school at Howard University College of Medicine, where I received the Charles Pinderhughes Award in Psychiatry. I finished Internship and Residency training at San Mateo County Hospital, where I was Chief Resident and the recipient of the Psychiatry Minority Residents in Training Award.

I have enjoyed working in a diverse array of settings throughout my career, serving people from many different walks of life. This includes private practice, outpatient clinics, inpatient hospitals, university campuses, psychiatric emergency rooms, and correctional facilities.

During my Partnership at Kaiser I served as Liaison to the Ob/Gyn Department for over eight years, where I assisted in implementing the use of a standardized depression screening tool for pregnant and post-partum people. This screening tool (the PHQ-9) is now widely used across most Kaiser campuses and many other clinics in the U.S.

My cultural experiences and personal identity have given me a deeper awareness of many issues around racial, cultural, and gender identity, and I am therefore uniquely qualified to understand and respect the challenges that many people, regardless of their backgrounds, encounter in these areas. My three-pronged approach to treatment, which includes medication management, therapy, and life-style modification allows me to construct individually tailored treatment plans that address the whole person.

My approach to caring for patients is collaborative and non-judgmental. My treatment emphasis is individually centered on assisting people in their entirety along their journey to healing, rather than simply viewing them through the lens of a limited set of pathologies. I am looking forward to the chance to work with you!

Testimonials

I highly recommend the services of Dr. Cathrine Reed of Peninsula Mental Health. Notably, she is very well organized and detailed oriented in her practice. Thus, her notes of office visits and her questions that begin each session are extremely thorough. In addition, she is also cautious and careful as she works with you to determine the best plan for treatment. At all times, Dr. Reed has the patient's needs and concerns in mind. Recognizing the impact of increased environmental stress and other factors, Dr. Reed effectively adjusted and refocused my prescriptions accordingly. Perhaps most notably, Dr. Reed is interested in the whole patient. As such, she takes time to listen and to hear what you feel is happening before she determines a course of action. Dr. Reed has a calm demeanor as well as personal warmth that makes her accessible. At the same time, she upholds the highest standards of integrity and professionalism. She is an excellent choice for someone in need of a psychiatrist.
J.E.
Dr. Reed is knowledgeable, experienced and very kind. I found working with her to be a collaborative experience. She’s a great listener and you can tell she really cares. She’s also got so much expertise to draw on and I trusted her implicitly. Peninsula Mental Health is a great resource for our community.
A.T.
Finding a great psychiatrist/psychotherapist can be very difficult. When you find one you click with, you kind of just “know”. After a few sessions with Dr. Reed I knew she was a perfect fit for me. I’ve struggled with depression pretty much my entire adult life, so I know what it looks like and generally what works and does not work for me. Dr. Reed didn’t try to reinvent the wheel or push any pre-defined notion of what she thought my treatment should be – she listened to me and what I wanted to improve upon in order to devise a plan that worked. She did challenge some assumptions and suggest many things I had not thought of (which was great!), but never in a way that felt like she didn’t trust my own assessment of my feelings and my health. We landed on a plan that included medication and cognitive behavioral therapy (both of which I had positive outcomes with previously), as well as incorporating some new mindfulness practices that have been very helpful. Overall my experience with Dr. Reed has been fantastic, and while I wouldn’t presume to know what everyone is looking for in a doctor, I highly recommend giving her a try.
S.E.
Dr. Reed is such a compassionate and professional psychiatrist. She really cares about her patients and always has their best interest at heart. Dr. Reed would always want to provide me with the best support and she is extremely knowledgeable in her profession. She is also very accommodating and understanding. Am so grateful for the care she has provided me with! Thank Dr. Reed for making me feel so special under your care.
C.E.
I was struggling with severe anxiety, so my primary care doctor referred me to Dr. Reed. From the beginning she went above and beyond to listen, demonstrate compassion, and give reassuring advice. Her therapeutic approach incorporates CBT with appropriate medication which dramatically helped my underlying issue. She is a consummate professional and never judges or misunderstands her patients, this was extremely helpful building a relationship. She is an amazing healer and deeply knowledgeable about clinical psychiatry. You literally changed my life forever. Thank you Dr. Reed!
S.A.
My primary care doctor referred me to Dr. Reed during a profoundly difficult period in my life. A series of stressors had plunged me into a period of acute anxiety; I wasn’t able to fall or stay asleep, had no appetite, and was basically in fight-or-flight mode all the time, unable to function. Because I hadn’t experienced any serious mental health challenges before this point, I was terrified and didn’t know what to do. I I believe in a holistic approach and like to limit pharmaceutical medications as much as possible, so I was skeptical of seeing a psychiatrist, but Dr. Reed was such a godsend. She called me back right away, and was so caring, thoughtful, and available, that all my nerves about seeking help were assuaged. She worked with me, my PCP, and my holistic doctor to find the right medications and mental tools to help pull me out of my tailspin and get me back to well being. Once I was stable, she also supported me in tapering off my medications so that now, two years later, I’ve been off meds for a year and have never felt so happy and balanced. Throughout my time with her, Dr. Reed made me feel heard and seen, and I always felt calmer and more hopeful after leaving her office, even on my worst days. I can’t recommend her highly enough!
L. H.
Dr. Reed is the best! She helped me so much at a time when I needed support, kindness, and professional wisdom that Dr. Reed provides so very well. I was apprehensive at first to see anyone to help with my issues (due to some negative experiences in the past), and Dr. Reed truly listened and was sensitive to all of my concerns. I highly recommend Dr. Reed to anyone who wants a smart, understanding, kind, and experienced psychiatrist friend to listen and lend a helping hand. I am grateful to Dr. Reed for her guidance and support.
R.C.
I was struggling with work/life balance and managing my underlying anxiety. Dr Reed took the time to hear my concerns, explain my treatment options (in a clear and digestible way), and provide her recommendations. I'm sure another MD wouldn't have spent the time with me to explain the various treatment options and provide me with space and empowerment to make my own choices. I was grateful for my time with Dr Reed, which pulled me out of a dark place and into the productive and solution-focused future that I am focusing on now. Interpersonally, she is lovely and present. With gratitude, I thank Dr Reed for the life changing time to process my difficulties with clarity, and look forward to the potential for change.
L.M.
I've been seeing Dr. Reed for a number of years, when she worked in San Jose. I continue to see her in Menlo Park, even though it is quite a distance from home. She is the most kind psychiatrist I have seen. And - more importantly - she knows her meds!
T. M.
I am really happy with my experience with Dr. Reed. She is 100% engaged on each visit, extremely knowledgeable (of course) and she's thoughtfully motivational. I've had a number of complex and troubling issues to work through with a history of misdiagnosis from other doctors in the past. The misdiagnoses ended up with me onto a cocktail with lots of adverse side effects and little value delivered. When you change psychiatrists I have found that they are very adverse to rethinking diagnoses from others in the past. I presume the liability associated a mistake could be high for them creating a disincentive to changing your diagnosis. Dr. Reed really listened to ME along with the notes from my doctors past. She thoughtfully considered everything and developed a way to test my beliefs scientifically. We then together constructed a plan to safely titrate me down from the unpleasant cocktail of meds which were so problematic. It worked. I am off of 90% of the meds I had been taking and feel so much better and more stable. I think the trick was for me to be as patient as I could be, knowing that she really knows her stuff and was moving as quickly and safely as possible. My wife owns a mental health business and watched me get better. She was equally impressed and she coached me on how to be the best patient I could be to get better. I do not think I could find a better doctor and strongly recommend Dr. Reed to anybody. Then trust her and bust your butt to be the best patient you can be.
D. B.