Reversing the Growing Youth Mental Health Crisis

Guest Host Dr. Devon Berkheiser

On December 7, The United States surgeon general warned that young people are facing “devastating” mental health effects because of the challenges experienced by their generation, including the coronavirus pandemic. Here are some ways our professionals can help educate and engage parents to recognize the signs and symptoms to receive the care their child deserves.

Dr. Alejandra Postlethwaite is a board-certified community, adult, adolescent, and child psychiatrist, and an assistant clinical professor in the UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry.

After completing medical school at the Universidad Autonoma of Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico, she lived and worked in San Juan Teitipac, Oaxaca, as a family practitioner. She received her psychiatric training at Harvard Medical School and UC San Diego, her child and adolescent psychiatric training at UCLA, and her psychoanalytic psychotherapy training at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. Her research career has focused on childhood trauma and parental bonding in the Hispanic population. She has been honored with several awards, including UC San Diego Chair Research Award, UC San Diego Medical Student Teaching Award, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Chief Resident Leadership Travel Award, the APA Minority Fellowship Award, UCLA Gertude R Greenblatt, MD Award for humanity work, and the American Psychoanalytic Association Fellowship Award.

Alejandra is actively involved in the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) Diversity and Culture Committee, the California Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (ACAP) and San Diego ACAP Chapters, for which she is president-elect. She was the behavioral health services director for La Maestra Community Health Center prior to joining Neighborhood Healthcare, where she continues to work with medically underserved children and families. She is also a staff psychiatrist at Rady Children's Hospital's Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Services inpatient unit, and a professor for first-year UC San Diego medical students. Prior to her work at federally qualified health care clinics, Dr Postlethwaite, was the associate training director for UC San Diego's Community Psychiatry Fellowship Program.