Meet Our Team - Dr. Philip Bonanno, MD, MS
Dr. Philip Bonanno, MD, MS
Position at the Hallowell Todaro ADHD Center:
Staff Psychiatrist
How long have you been working at Hallowell Todaro ADHD?
3 months
Where did you grow up?
Northern NJ
What are your favorite books / TV shows / movies?
Books: Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, anything by Oliver Sacks, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa
TV Shows: All the usual dramas on Netflix and HBO.
What’s your favorite sport and/or sports team?
Played a lot of soccer and enjoyed skateboarding and snowboarding when I was younger. Most recently, I run and lift weights a few times a week to enhance my well-being. Never followed any professional sports!
Complete the following sentences:
When I’m not at work, you can find me...
relaxing with my wife and daughter, exploring, or hiking in our nearest redwood forest.
When I want to de-stress, I...
come up with an elaborate cooking project, head to the gym, or play my bass guitar.
My favorite time of year is...
the fall, mainly because that’s when the leaves change and when my birthday is.
My favorite thing to cook is...
seafood, barbecue, Italian/Asian/Mexican cuisines.
If I could travel anywhere in the world, I’d go to...
Japan, to savor some authentic sushi!
The best gift I ever received was…
a hot air balloon ride over the Mexican pyramids from my wife!
What led you to pursue a career in helping others?
I had some formative experiences early on in my life with alternative medicine approaches such as Reiki, meditation, and yoga. These experiences helped me to understand the power of the mind, leading me down a path of self-discovery, and ultimately fueling my educational path to learn how to harness this power and help others to tap into it.
What education, skills and expertise do you bring to your role?
My undergraduate and graduate degrees in Psychology help to ground my medical education and psychiatric training to always remember to work with the person and not just the medications. I strongly believe that expectations of treatment are sometimes as or more important than the treatment itself, and so a lot goes into the intention of treatment and the therapeutic relationship. My added training in consultation-liaison psychiatry from Stanford also helps me to comfortably navigate medically and psychiatrically complex cases.
Who/what inspires you?
I am inspired by all my patients who work tremendously hard in the face of adversity to overcome their challenges and be the change in their life that they wish to see.
What’s your personal philosophy/approach toward the work you do?
The individuals that I work with ultimately are the ones who do the heavy lifting in our work together. My job is easy in comparison. I consider it essential to align with the patient, clarify their goals, and collaboratively develop a treatment plan to work toward those goals. When using medications, I consider them to be potent tools to modify biology as a means of lessening or easing the burden of effort required to catalyze change. Once issues of inattention, anxiety, mood, or difficulties sleeping are better addressed, and routines can come into place, it becomes easier to maintain one’s mental health and well-being, building momentum into embodying the changes we wish to see in ourselves. I love the notion of the “ideal self”, as this is a very personal and sometimes private vision that serves as a landmark, helping us to navigate life’s challenges and informing small decisions we make along the way eventually leading us toward this ‘destination’. However, I don’t believe we ever fully reach that destination, because along the way, our ideal self is changing and evolving with us. In this, we discover a happiness of pursuit, a state of being ripe with inspiration and curiosity.
What is one small thing people can do to improve their lives / increase their happiness?
So many come to mind, but a very tangible thing that is evidence-based to produce results would be to find an exercise that works for you and do it for at least 11 minutes every day; moderate intensity is preferred to really get that heart rate up and get the neurochemicals flowing!
We provide a range of support for people with ADHD.