Jeanne Leventhal Alexander, MD

I am writing to inform others of Dr. Alexander’s office protocols and behavior. I found Dr. Alexander to appear annoyed and dismissive of my needs and mental health challenges throughout my time with her. In fact, when I needed Dr. Alexander the most she let me go as a patient with no notice. This is simply not okay health wise, potentially malpractice and fragrantly disrespectful. Dr. Alexander informed me over the phone while I was on the psychiatric ward in the hospital that she would neither work with me again nor advocate for me with the health professionals at the hospital. At this moment I was in the middle of an immense medication change, in great need and she couldn’t have let me down more. Dr. Alexander has impressive credentials and a great amount of clout in the Berkeley community, however, I believe her to be a very poor practitioner. I am writing this review not to «bash» Dr. Alexander but to inform potential clients so that they may avoid the same tragic experience. I would not recommend Dr. Alexander to anyone and I feel very strongly about that.
In fact, I believe she is retiring soon and I have to say that makes me very happy to hear as I do not think she belongs in the medical community. Finally once she is retired she will not be able to traumatize further clients that she perceives as too challenging to treat. It is very clear that Dr. Alexander is only willing to work with wealthy people who suffer from very few to no mental health challenges. I find this despicable.

I feel very lucky to have found Dr Alexander. She is brilliant and thorough, and she really listens. She has been invaluable with helping me with hormone and ADHD issues. Highly recommend.

Dr. Leventhal’s practice isn’t super economical, but I felt it was money well spent. I’d still be seeing her today if she hadn’t implored me to see someone who was more affordable for me once I had health insurance. I was uncertain, but she referred me to someone (who has turned out to be a perfect fit) as soon as I felt comfortable making the transition. That doesn’t seem like the behavior of someone who is shady when it comes to money.
Here are some of the other things I appreciated:
1) Booking my initial appointment took a bit of time, but scheduling follow ups and such was a breeze. It’s clear that there isn’t a proper receptionist/​assistant on call all day but that makes sense for a one-​person practice. None of my therapists have ever had a load of availability by phone. They’re with patients all day and if they have help at all it’s part-​time.
2) I was very impressed at Dr. Leventhal’s consideration of culture and socioeconomics during the intake process. Certain mental issues can be diagnosed mistakenly due to a lack of consideration about the impact that class and culture have on how we see the world. For instance: constantly thinking that someone is breaking into your home is paranoia if you live in a «safe» neighborhood. Not so if you actually live or have lived in an area where people break into homes often. She asked all of the right questions and didn’t assume that my ability to pay her out of pocket meant that I had a history of affluence.
3) I felt that she was tracking my progress really thoroughly. I am not a fan of doing scales over and over again but it’s a necessary evil for me and I was able to see patterns that hadn’t been clear before by tracking the changes in my mood from visit to visit. She paid attention to the signs as we tried different meds and helped me tweak them until we got them right. (Noteworthy that she’d mentioned referring me off prior to my feeling stable but was only really passionate about it once I was feeling better — I felt safe and not rushed.)
4) She was very forward thinking in the tools she used to diagnose and treat me. She gave me a saliva test to determine how my body metabolizes certain chemicals. From what I understand it’s a mixed bag whether or not those things make a huge difference, but when it comes to mental health there’s so much uncharted territory that I feel better knowing that new methods are at least being tried (test-​wise, I’m not signing up to be a pharma lab rat any time soon, LOL). At the time there was no extra charge for that test and the report I got with the results was incredibly cool and detailed. She also gave me alternative options that weren’t based in pharmaceuticals to help manage my depression and sleeplessness — it wasn’t just writing scripts and sending me on my way.
5) When it was time for me to transfer to the new practice Dr. Leventhal was incredibly thorough in giving me documentation to make the next intake a bit easier. All of my most recent scales, records of my medications and progress as well as her notes on my most recent mental state. Again: I wasn’t charged for these things and I’ve had therapists charge me an arm and a leg for them in the past.
The only thing I wasn’t stoked about was that I didn’t get calls to remind me of upcoming appointments. Forgetfulness is a pretty common symptom of some of the conditions she treats and can also happen on certain medications, so it would be a nice improvement to add an automated follow-​up call to her booking process.
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I can see there are only three reviews published and two of them are negative. But there are FORTY TWO filtered reviews that seem to be a bit more balanced. Really Unilocal,what’s up with that? You might want to consider that for certain personal goods and services people won’t want to use their primary Unilocal accounts when submitting reviews, and that is pretty understandable. Perhaps that’s why the reviews that were submitted were from accounts that don’t have enough Unilocal cred to show up. Maybe do more research and give Dr. Leventhal a fair shot, eh?

Wow, this MD needs a MD. NEVER returns phone calls. very limited practice. I do not know how she makes it

Dr. Alexander is an outstanding therapist — perceptive, experienced, super-​bright, and methodical. She helped unravel my complicated mix of issues and explained the relative role of each problem in the entire picture. Then she carefully tried out a few new medications and I was much better much more rapidly than I could have imagined. She is very expensive, so that will be the make-​or-​break decision for each patient (and my reason for my 4-​star rating rather than 5 stars). But if you can possibly manage her fees, she will help you enormously.
As an aside, I’m not sure why so many reviews (five pages of them) of Dr. Alexander’s work, almost all of them hugely positive, are considered «not recommended» reviews and are thus hidden. I have read the explanation for not showing those reviews on first glance and I still don’t think the reasons apply.

I am a 41 year old female Registered Nurse, married to a physician, and I say this only to illustrate that I am not a layperson and I do have some medical knowledge, so you would think that it would be easier for me to find a qualified psychiatrist. That being said, I have been to many psychiatrists for my ADHD and Depression to get treatment that would really help, not just giving me different meds and handing out prescriptions. I went to The Amen Clinic in Fairfield and The Hallowell Center in NYC, etc. I felt like they would empathize with me and then just give me a prescription. I never got any better. I never felt like my depression was improving. I am very fortunate to have found Dr Alexander. She was so thorough. She looks at me as a whole person, not just a psychiatric patient. She looks at my nutrition, sleep, happiness, social interaction. After 5 or 6 years of feeling desperate to find a doctor that would actually try to figure out my ‘whole’ picture, I am happy to say that I feel better! Yay! Without ANY hesitation I would highly recommend Dr Alexander.

Jeanne really knows what she is talking about. Spot-​on diagnosis. Definitely recommend. However, she is quite expensive and does not take insurance. Worth the money, I say.

Alexander’s referenced therapist for my wife turned out to have several law suits against him for doctor-​patient impropriety. Further her billing administration is unwieldy and impossible to anticipate as she charges by the 7.5 minute, plus material. And she charges for pretty much everything… like reading an email from me that was prompted because a script she wrote was rejected by the insurance carrier as it was improperly written. That is, she screwed up and charged me for it. And that script was not the only one rejected because it was improperly filled in. The excessive time taken to straighten out her bad scripts came close on several occasions of causing my wife to run out of her critical meds. It’s a shame because Alexander is an excellent doctor I think. She did wonders for my wife’s mental health. But her lack of administrative skills forces me to not recommend her to anyone.

I really enjoyed working with Jeanne. She has a friendly and straightforward style that worked well for me, and I was able to have real conversations with her. I felt right from the start that she was on my side, that she truly cared, and that she was going to hang in there with me until I was okay. She was also very generous with her time.
I have years of experiences with psychiatrists and Jeanne is the best of the best. I recommend her to anyone who is struggling and wants help.

Great doctor who really knows what she’s doing and will think outside the box. In addition to being creative and very knowledgeable, she’s personable and like-​able. I highly recommend her.

Dr. Alexander is very compassionate about her work. She is patient, kind, and verrrry intelligent. She has helped me so much and goes out of her way to help her patients. This doctor cares and loves what she does. If you are serious about getting proper care, Dr. Alexander is definitely worth it. The world needs more doctors like Dr. A.

Jeanne is an exceptionally smart, experienced and compassionate professional. I was fortunate to have been referred to her for the treatment of my chronic pain and all of the issues that go with the territory. Dr. Alexander helped me identify the proper course of treatment and helped me locate additional resources to help manage my situation on a day-​to-​day basis. I definitely recommend her to anyone seeking the guidance of a seasoned pro with impressive credentials and a caring attitude toward her patients.

Attentive, knowledgeable and caring. Highly recommend.

Jeanne Leventhal Alexander knows more about the connections between hormones and women’s mental health than any doctor I’ve come across. Other M.D.s recommend her when they suspect a woman is suffering from hormone-​related emotional issues, which is how I originally found her. She helped me enormously with problems with PMDD (a serious form of PMS) and later perimenopausal mood swings. She is very generous with her time and willing to keep on trying new tactics when others fail. She also has a sense of humor and is very personable and enjoyable to work with.