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Functional Psychiatry for Bedford, NH

A traditional psychiatric work-up starts and often ends with a symptom checklist. Functional psychiatry takes the whole person into account instead, using targeted testing to look for underlying deficiencies and physiological concerns that may be contributing to how someone feels and functions. In Bedford, where households often split their week between an office in Massachusetts and a home near Nashua, Merrimack, Windham, or Londonderry, that whole-person view matters. People here tend to be busy, health-conscious, and used to weighing options carefully before committing to a course of care.

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Functional Psychiatry for people in Bedford, NH

Bedford sits near the center of New Hampshire’s population corridor, and many of the families who live here chose the town for its schools, its proximity to Manchester and the Massachusetts border, and the absence of a state income tax. A lot of Bedford residents commute south for work and are already comfortable managing appointments, errands, and daily life across a state line. Functional psychiatry fits that same pattern of thinking: it treats mental health as connected to the rest of the body rather than as a separate system, and it asks what physical factors might be part of the picture before settling on a plan.

This approach does not replace careful listening and clinical judgment. It adds a layer of testing and data that can inform how a prescriber thinks about a person’s presentation, alongside the conversation about history, symptoms, and daily life.

How telehealth care actually works

Harborside Psychiatrics is based in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, and delivers care by video across the states where its clinicians are licensed, including New Hampshire. For Bedford patients, that means appointments happen from wherever you have privacy and a stable connection: home, a car during a lunch break, an office with the door closed.

You need a device with a camera and microphone, a reasonably reliable internet connection, and a quiet space for the session. A first appointment typically runs longer, since it involves a detailed intake and discussion of history and current concerns. Follow-up visits are shorter and focus on how things are going and whether any adjustments are needed. If a prescription is part of your plan, it is sent electronically to the pharmacy you choose in New Hampshire, the same way a prescription from an in-person visit would be. How often you’re seen depends on your situation, but many patients start with more frequent visits and space them out over time.

What we treat

Functional psychiatry at Harborside is used for concerns like persistent low mood, anxiety that has not responded to a standard approach, fatigue that shows up alongside emotional symptoms, and cases where someone wants their prescriber to look at nutritional and physiological factors as part of the evaluation. It’s often a fit for people who have tried a conventional approach before and want a more thorough look at what else might be contributing to how they feel. It is not a stand-alone treatment for a medical emergency, and it does not replace ongoing primary care.

What the first appointment involves

The first appointment is a conversation, not a procedure. Your clinician will ask about your history, your current symptoms, your sleep, your diet, and any relevant medical background. Based on that discussion, targeted lab testing may be ordered to check for things like nutritional deficiencies or other physiological markers that can affect mood and cognition. Results are reviewed with you, and they become part of the broader plan alongside anything discussed in the visit itself. There is no assumption going in about what the plan will look like. That gets built with you, based on what the intake and testing show.

Who our clinicians are

Medication management and functional psychiatry at Harborside are performed by psychiatric nurse practitioners: Rachel Egan, RN PMHNP-BC, who is Harborside’s clinical director, Emily Pardue, RN PMHNP-BC, and Kirstin Ritchie, RN PMHNP-BC. Each is qualified to evaluate, diagnose, and prescribe for mental health conditions, and each brings their own approach to functional and integrative testing as part of that work. Full bios and credentials for all three are on the team page.

Therapy and eating disorder care at Harborside are delivered by the licensed therapy team: Hannah Legesse, LICSW, Tori Mahoney, LMHC, Jacquelyn Duford, LCMHC ATR, and Lexie Carchedi, LCSW. Some Bedford patients work with a prescriber and a therapist together, and some work with just one.

What it costs

Harborside is a private-pay practice and does not bill insurance directly for appointments. Current fees for an initial appointment and for follow-up visits are listed on the pricing page, and any questions about cost can be answered before you book anything.

Getting started

If you’re in Bedford and considering functional psychiatry, the first step is scheduling an initial appointment with one of Harborside’s psychiatric nurse practitioners. That visit is where history, current concerns, and any relevant testing get discussed together, and where you and your clinician decide what makes sense from there. You can review the functional psychiatry service page or the New Hampshire telehealth page for more on how care is delivered across the state, or the Southern NH region page for how this looks for towns near Bedford. If anxiety is a central concern for you, the anxiety treatment page covers that in more detail.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is functional psychiatry the same as functional medicine?

If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For mental health crisis support, call or text 988. Harborside Psychiatrics does not provide emergency or after-hours care.

This page is educational and is not medical advice. It does not create a provider-patient relationship. [CITATION: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health or similar federal source on integrative approaches to mental health, to support the framing of functional/integrative evaluation]

Clinical reviewer: Rachel Egan, RN PMHNP-BC, Clinical Director, Harborside Psychiatrics. Last reviewed: {LAST_REVIEWED}.

No. Whether labs make sense is decided together at the first visit, based on your history and symptoms.

Bring it to your first appointment. Existing results can often be used instead of repeating tests.

No. Labs are typically billed separately by the lab itself and may be partly covered by insurance depending on the plan.

Yes. It’s meant to work alongside an existing therapist or primary care provider, not replace them.

Functional psychiatry includes the same prescribing and monitoring, plus a review of physical health factors like sleep, nutrition, and lab markers.

If you need help right now

If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For mental health crisis support, call or text 988. Harborside Psychiatrics does not provide emergency or after-hours care.

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