How a Homeopathic Psychiatrist in Newton Changed this Patient’s life
Feb 28, 2025 07:30AM ● By Margarita Ivanova
Adam and Nicole Jacobs with their kids Ava and Colton in their home.
It took Adam Jacobs one
convincing phone call: a call that weeks later, would
lead him to curiously ascend two flights of stairs into a stranger’s colorful
Victorian-style home in Newton, Massachusetts. On the outside, one may have
expected to see all kinds of plants, a small garden with a 4-foot wooden
bridge, metal flowers beaming from the ground, the occasional gargoyle and a
set of deer statues. It wasn’t the monotonously sterile kind of welcome most
doctor’s offices gave— with pristinely cut bushes and brown waiting room
chairs. Jacobs liked the old feel of the place. It was charming. Figurines of
owls and other art within the home would reflect the familiar eclectic remnants
of the outside.
At 47,
he’d walk up these stairs with the same sense of exhaustion that permeated
throughout his past 20 years, in an uphill struggle trying to wean off of
medications with seemingly no end. When he reached the last step, he’d walk
into Dr. Judy Tsafrir’s office, where the course of his struggle would change
through an untraditional means.
Tsafrir has practiced homeopathic
psychiatry for over 20 years. She is a
board-certified adult and child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is on the
faculty of Harvard Medical School and the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, and
teaches and supervises at the Cambridge Health Alliance. She’s the author of “Sacred Psychiatry,” and consistently works with patients to wean them off
of psychotropic drugs.
While her training is
conventional, her approach is not. She advertises that her practice “is
dedicated to healing through integration of heart, mind, body, soul and the
biosphere and Cosmos.”
After
Jacobs engaged in several attempts to try to wean off of anxiety-prescribed
medications, with consistent relapses and little luck, he found Tsafrir right
after the pandemic. Like many first-time clients, he initially approached her
practice with skepticism, especially after seeing that she also specialized in
astrology.
"I'm
like well, this, it's just like a hocus pocus kind of because I was never
really into that sort of thing… but then the other side of what she did seemed
so appealing to me so I decided to give it a try.”
When they connected on the phone, she
took the time to get to know him and all of his history, as opposed to many
other doctors he’d come across.

Husband and wife Adam and Nicole Jacobs in their family home in Westborough, MA.
Growing up in Brockton Massachusetts, Jacobs says he was an extroverted and outgoing kid who occasionally got red in the face, but his life experienced a shock when he was 16 and his father died suddenly of a heart attack. Everything at home changed. They were no longer a stable middle class nuclear family.
As his
mom sent him to counselors, he found himself mentally checked out, unwilling to
talk, “like Matt Damon’s character in Good Will Hunting,” he jokes. Jacobs
buried things, like the fact that his family was struggling financially and
didn’t have life insurance. On paper, he was a straight A student, and never
experimented with any drugs. But apart from these checked boxes, he became more
quiet and isolated— developing a social anxiety that seeped into his band
concerts and friendships. It was an anxiety that would soon reappear after
college, at one of the most exciting parts of his career.
As
Jacobs was living out a Boston Wolf-of-Wall Street lifestyle as a post-grad
institutional bond trader, it was an unexpected time for these unsettling
feelings. “I was getting, you know, taken out by all these brokers and going
out for steak dinners all the time,” Jacobs said. “And I'm like 24 years old at
this point.”
He
voiced concerns about his anxiety spikes to his primary care doctor, and in
turn, was given a prescription for Zoloft, and eventually Wellbutrin within a
30 minute conversation.
That
is not uncommon in many patients. Roxanne Chavalier and Brooke Holder, patients
who were prescribed higher doses of psychotropic medications after voicing
concerns about side effects, were also initially diagnosed and prescribed
within a 15-30 minute conversation by their primary care physicians.
Those
who prescribed their medications were not specialized in psychiatry, which
isn’t an anomaly. Nearly 80% of nationwide prescriptions
for psychotropic drugs come from holistic physicians, who have a limited
training in treating mental health, as opposed to psychiatrists. A 2011 study showed that misdiagnosis in these kinds of primary care
settings reaches 65.9% for major depressive disorder, 92.7% for bipolar
disorder, and 71.0% for anxiety disorder.
“I
told them many times that I didn’t think [the medication] was working for me,
because there were these continuing suicidal thoughts,” said Holder, now a
college senior in Boston. “I would tell them I’d still have these moments of
uncontrollable sadness, which I didn’t understand was bipolar at the time, and
instead of changing my meds or trying to figure it out, they would always just
prescribe more or double it.”
For
Jacobs, six months of being on the drugs seemed to have a promising effect, and
life was running a smooth course. He proposed to his sweetheart Nicole, and the
newly engaged couple would make a move out to North Carolina for his work. But
the sexual side effects of the medication led him to stop taking it cold
turkey, which led to a massive crash.
“It
turns out my body is very sensitive to these things. And I had sort of a mental
breakdown, and then got in front of a psychiatrist down in North Carolina. And
he immediately gives me Klonopin for some immediate relief.”
Klonopin
is in the benzodiazepine class, and functions as a long-acting tranquilizer,
where it is also given to people before undergoing surgery. Known for being
highly addictive, doctors are advised to limit the prescription to 2-4 weeks.
Jacobs
was going through a withdrawal from the past medication, without realizing what
it was, and was given the Klonopin prescription with little guidance.
“Take
them as needed,” he recalls his doctor saying.
“And
so the solution, you know, probably shouldn't have been giving me another drug.
It's like, all right, I just shouldn't have stopped these other meds cold
turkey.”
Jacobs
says there is a crisis lurking after opioids, and it is “the Benzo crisis”. Benzodiazepines are among the most commonly prescribed psychiatric
medications, with more than 1 in 20 people in the
U.S. filling a prescription each year. They are also the third most commonly
misused illicit or prescription substance among adults and adolescents in the
U.S.
“There
are millions of people on these drugs and the anecdotes and the stories that
you will hear is that these drugs are harder to get off than heroin,” he said.
“The difference is that you can still function, unlike if you're on heroin and
you're totally high and strung out,”
When
trying to stop Klonopin, withdrawal symptoms completely took over any sense of
control for Jacobs, and often led him to relapse into depressive and physically
straining cycles— something that would continue for twenty years.
His
withdrawal symptoms ranged from the commonly referred “head zaps”, to physical
pain in the bones, muscles, and teeth, to restless leg syndrome.
“Imagine
something where your entire body cannot sit still, can't sleep, can't focus,
can't do anything,” he said. “It’s like you’re in this purgatory/hell while
you're saying ‘this it, it might last half an hour it might last three four
five hours,’ and you're in such agony with this that you literally can’t find
any sort of relief or rest.”
Many
patients are led to increase their doses over time from the tolerance
withdrawal, which makes the drug less effective.
“So
like the Klonopin that I take now, I don't feel anything,” Jacobs said. There
is no relief from it. There is no benefit. There's no high. Nothing. Like it's
just my whole central nervous system at this point is only just addicted to
it.”
While
being in a perpetual state of physical and mental unpredictability, Jacobs grew
a team at a wealth management firm in Boston with over $2 billion in client
assets, where he manages 13 advisors and 10 client service managers.
He
loves his job, has a beautiful house, and is married to a loving wife with two
kids. His life embodies the American dream on the outside.
“And so I was getting myself a little bit
lower, and going to different support groups and so on,” he said. “And I'm just
like, this is, it's a living hell. I’m having suicidal thoughts. I can't go on.
The only thing that kept me going was my wife and kids that I love so much.”
Jacobs
even bought extra life insurance because he didn’t know what was going to
happen to him.
“I
used to have thoughts about, you know,” Jacobs said. “There's a period of time
called an incontestable period where if you get life insurance, you can't, if
you commit suicide within two years, they won't pay out a claim. Um, but I, in
my mind was like, if I can get through these two years, I could check out, and
my family financially would be okay.”
After
trying to sever a reliance for 20 years with a medication he believed he
shouldn’t have been on in the first place, he would only find success once he
started Tsafrir’s protocols.
“And
she goes, ‘if I feel comfortable with you, then I will take over prescribing
your medication,’” he said. “So she wasn't even going to take over my
medication at first. It was going to be my primary care and that's what we were
going to do unless she felt that I was somebody that was willing to follow her
instructions, not just sit there and talk once a week. I told her ‘yeah, I’d do
anything.’”
As he began his sessions, his protocol
consisted of an anti-inflammatory keto-based diet, a Gupta meditation program,
sunlight, time outside and occasional Ketamine sessions. His diet also involved taking sugar
pills with a Klonopin base to slowly taper off.
Dr.
Tsafrir says that in addition to nutrition, part of the routine consists of 40
minutes a day of practice doing guided meditations; they’re what she calls
“brain retraining exercises.”
“If a
person is too depressed to participate, or they just say, ‘oh, like I've done
meditation before, I don't want to do that,’ You know, I just can't help them,”
she said. “And I don’t want to waste their time and money.”
It's
been over a year since Jacob’s started the protocols, and now 49, he says he
couldn’t have ever imagined the mental place he’d be in.
“And
not only that, I'm still tapering through these medications. I'm still having a
drug that most people can't ever get off, that people say is harder to get off
than heroin. But here I am, more physically active, more present than I've ever
been with my family, my work. It's unbelievable. And I sit down, I'm like, wow.
Even my thought processes are so different.”
Jacobs
and Dr. Tsafrir expect the final stages of tapering to take place in March.
Matthew
Smith, who has a doctorate in Medical History, and is a professor and historian
in social psychology and pharmacology at
the University of Strathclyde in
Glasgow, says that the prescribing practices that affected Holder, Chavalier,
and Jacobs, are all too common in the U.S., partly due to the healthcare
system— where 65.4% Americans rely on private
insurance.
“And
so private providers are not interested in paying for, you know, hours and
hours of psychotherapy, they're very willing to pay for a drug, because it's
cheaper, it's easier,” he said. “And it also, you know, it's also something
that the drug companies are interested in as well.”
Immediately
putting individuals on pharmaceutical drugs is often the first resort, rather
than the last, Smith says. He also says that the rise in psycho-pharmacology
and the demise in psychoanalysis has led to the failure of addressing the role
that poverty, inequality, and other socioeconomic factors also play in people’s
mental health.
Jacobs
says he is lucky to be where he is now, and partly credits Dr. Tsafrir for saving
his life.
“If I
knew how I would feel right now, when we first started, I would have paid
anything,” he said. “My wife and I would have sold the freaking house if we
were assured that I'd be where I am now. Oh my God. We wouldn’t even have to
think about it.. You don't realize, unless you experience it—that if you don't
have your health, you have nothing.”
Jacobs
even bought extra life insurance because he didn’t know what was going to
happen to him.
“I
used to have thoughts about, you know,” Jacobs said. “There's a period of time
called an incontestable period where if you get life insurance, you can't, if
you commit suicide within two years, they won't pay out a claim. Um, but I, in
my mind was like, if I can get through these two years, I could check out, and
my family financially would be okay.”
During
this period, he began searching for unorthodox approaches— leading him to Dr.
Judy Tsafrir, a
board-certified adult and child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and a Harvard
Medical School faculty member who has practiced homeopathic psychiatry
for over 20 years.
The field of homeopathic psychiatry
approaches mental health through a focus on environmental conditions integrated
with many different aspects of the mind and body. Homeopathic psychiatrists, like
Tsafrir, consistently work with patients to wean them off of psychotropic
drugs.
At
first, Jacobs was skeptical of her approach. But soon enough, he’d be in her
office, and she’d spend a few sessions getting to know him and his history
before any intervention.
As he began his sessions, his protocol
consisted of an anti-inflammatory keto-based diet, a Gupta meditation program,
sunlight, time outside and occasional Ketamine sessions. His diet also involved taking sugar
pills with a Klonopin base to slowly taper off.
Tsafrir
says that in addition to nutrition, guided meditations provide what she calls a
“brain re-training exercise.”
“If a
person is too depressed to participate, or they just say, ‘oh, like I've done
meditation before, I don't want to do that,’ You know, I just can't help them,”
Tsafrir said. “And I don’t want to waste their time and money.”
Jacobs
is currently at the end of his tapering stages after a 20-year battle, and says
he is lucky to be where he is now. He partly credits Tsafrir for saving his
life.
“If I
knew how I would feel right now, when we first started, I would have paid
anything,” he said. “My wife and I would have sold the freaking house if we
were assured that I'd be where I am now. Oh my God. We wouldn’t even have to
think about it.. But you don't realize, unless you experience it—that if you
don't have your health, you have nothing.”
Margarita
Ivanova is an Emerson College journalism graduate who does freelance work
within the natural health sector and is currently working on a non-profit
startup app called Dono Volunteering. She has a passion for making music,
fitness, and plans on attending law school in the fall to study
environmental law. Connect at https://margaritaivanovablog.wordpress.com.