Ep # 163 - Rethinking Care: Train The Brain, Heal The Day

Your mental health care shouldn’t start with a prescription pad. We sit down with Ridgewood psychologist Dr. Sam Von Reiche, Psy. D. to unpack a holistic model that blends neurofeedback, sleep science, and everyday habits to help with anxiety, ADHD, and insomnia. If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t focus, why your mind races at night, or why talk therapy alone hasn’t moved the needle, this conversation offers a clear, practical path forward.

We break down who does what—psychiatrists, therapists, and psychologists—and why credentials matter less than experience and fit. Dr. Von Reiche explains how neurofeedback trains brainwaves that are too fast or too slow, improving attention, mood, and sleep without invasive procedures. We talk through brain mapping, 30‑minute sessions that let the tech do the work, and the cascading benefits of deeper rest. From there, we zoom out to the real-life levers of mental health: nutrition that stabilizes energy and anxiety, light and movement that reset circadian rhythms, and coaching-style therapy that is conversational, focused, and results-driven.

The pandemic left its mark. Anxiety and loneliness spiked, kids with ADHD struggled online, and social anxiety morphed as avoidance became routine. Couples in commuter-heavy communities found more time together, creating both conflict and connection. Through it all, the practice doubled down on whole-person care and concierge-level access—real people answering phones, fast scheduling, and even a warm welcome from Bailey, the therapy dog. For aspiring clinicians, Dr. Von Reiche shares candid lessons on building a private practice: delegate billing early, get expert advice, and design systems that protect great clinical work.

If you’re curious about non-medication options, want better sleep, or need a smarter plan for anxiety and attention, this episode is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with your top question about neurofeedback or sleep so we can dive deeper next time.

Dr. Sam Von Reiche and the Center for Transformation
Dr. Sam Von Reiche, Psy. D.
584 State Route 17 North, Ridgewood, NJ, 07450
(201) 890 6594
drsam@drsamvonreiche.com
drsamvonreiche.com

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Intro

Speaker 1 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host.

Doug Drohan 0:11

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. I am your host, Doug Drohan. Today I am really uh psyched. No pun intended. Actually, there is a pun intended to uh to be speaking with Dr. Sam Von Reiche. She is based in Ridgewood, has been on a lot of media, uh, a lot of appearances on NBC, uh Fox. She's done things in the New York Times. So we're honored to have her on the Good Neighbor Podcast. So welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 0:37

Thank you so much, Doug.

Who Treats What: Psychiatrists Vs Therapists Vs Psychologists

Doug Drohan 0:39

Yeah, so you know, we um, you know, this this is an opportunity for me to kind of uncover what somebody loves about what they do, whatever their career is, whether you're a psychologist, a therapist, or you make uh bake cookies in your kitchen and sell them uh at the town fairs and things like that. So it's an opportunity to really talk about how you built what you built and you know why you love what you do. So, you know, why don't you give us a little bit of background? You're the director, uh the clinical director of the Dr. Sam von Reich and Center for Transformation uh practice. You're based in Ridgewood, as I said. Um, you are a licensed psychologist. So, you know, tell me a little bit about the difference between being a psychologist versus a therapist, like a licensed clinical social worker, and maybe the difference between that and a psychiatrist, if you don't mind.

Speaker 2 1:32

Sure, sure. Well, um, and believe it or not, uh Doug, uh a lot of people still don't really uh understand the differences, so I think it's an excellent way to start. Um, so psychiatrists are MDs and they um they go through medical training so that they can prescribe medication. And some psychiatrists still go through uh psychotherapy training, uh, which is wonderful when um when psychiatrists are uh therapeutically trained, but I would say majority of the time these days, uh psychiatrists and the other people who are prescribing psychiatric meds specializing in that, which are nurse practitioners, um uh and um uh uh PAs as well, prescribe medication. And they're normally just familiar with the uh the symptoms of various psychiatric diagnoses and the pharmacological treatment. Hopefully they've also gotten enough basic training to learn how to deal with uh how to deal with the uh the psychological concerns of the patient.

Doug Drohan 2:59

Sorry, I don't know what's going on here. Keep going.

Speaker 2 3:02

Um therapists can get a variety of different kinds of training uh backgrounds. They can um get a master's in counseling, they can get a master's in social work, uh, and uh they can get um they can be um licensed as a marriage and family therapists, uh and um and psychologists go to uh generally clinical psychologists uh are um they are PhDs or psy Ds. So we um so we have a little more like a little more original training, um, but that um in the end, I would say that it really depends on the experience of the practitioner. Like a lot of times people are like, oh, I I want to go for the person who has the you know has the doctor title attached.

Speaker 3 4:00

Right, right.

Speaker 2 4:01

I I work with social workers who are who are excellent, and um, and so you know to me it really comes down to um the talent and skill level of the individual practitioner. But so I am a psychologist and I went to a doctoral program, which means that I had to complete a dissertation. Um and um and psychologists are also known for being able to evaluate. So um, so let's say licensed social workers do not perform evaluative uh they're they're not doing anything evaluative beyond a basic evaluation of the symptoms of the client, um, but we do testing and and things of that nature. So um so hopefully that answers.

A Holistic, Medication-Lite Approach

Doug Drohan 4:50

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, you have uh, I mean, on your website, it right out there it says a unique approach.

Speaker 2 4:58

Yes.

Doug Drohan 4:59

So what is the unique approach?

Speaker 2 5:01

So the unique approach is that we really look to um, I would say it's the holistic element of what we do that is a huge more unique than anything else, and that is that we are looking to steer um away from medication unless lots of other things have been tried. Um, not that we would be prescribing the medication, but we would be referring, let's say, to a psychiatrist or meds. So I'm very um uh uh knowledgeable about supplementation and other brain-based approaches. We offer neurofeedback, um, which is an incredibly uh effective brain-based approach, um, which has to do with training brain waves to operate like more in the normal range. Um, either they're too slow or they're too fast. Um these are uh the these are attached to the various uh psychological issues that people bring to the table.

Doug Drohan 6:09

So what so if you're determining somebody's brainwaves are firing too slow or too fast, how does that manifest itself in anxiety and depression and bipolar disorders or any and all of those. Okay.

Neurofeedback Basics And Brain Mapping

Speaker 2 6:25

Yeah. Uh let's say the brain waves are too slow or too fast, they could manifest as an ADHD uh type of disorder. Um somebody just their brain waves are so fast that they can't actually slow down and focus well enough, or they're so slow the the brain waves are slow enough that um that the person's processing is too slow. Uh and so um so sometimes we do a brain map that can actually show us what's happening if it looks like a very complex picture, but the techno neural feedback technology itself uh senses what the brain is doing and um and basically provides the remedy as part of that technology. It's incredible, incredible stuff that's being applied to virtually every diagnostic category, including dementia, including uh uh uh autism spectrum disorder, ASD. Um and um it's also really just good for people who are stressed out.

Doug Drohan 7:36

Like so is that is that in the old days what shock therapy was supposed to be doing?

Speaker 2 7:41

No.

Doug Drohan 7:42

No, okay. No, it's you know, I have I have one flu over the cuckoo's nest. I have one flu over the cuckoo's nest in my head, you know.

Speaker 2 7:48

Yeah, no, no, no, and that was um shock therapy and uh and uh yeah, and uh and a variety of things that we we no longer libotomies, they don't use those anymore, Doug. Yeah, yeah, although you know I've been uh it's actually like a 30 30-minute session during which the person can read a book or sit quietly, relax, uh, and uh and the the neurofeedback does all the work. And that's my kind of treatment, honestly, where is doing all the work, also can uh promote much more restful sleep over over time, which is you know probably one of our number one symptoms that people present coming through the door.

Doug Drohan 8:32

Yeah, so I could I could talk to you for hours about that.

Speaker 2 8:36

Insomnia, right? So um, so um, and and insomnia is related to brainwaves. Uh so therefore people people find that they're they're sleeping far more soundly, and it's also considered now one of the uh even a primary treatment for insomnia. Uh so um, because you know, obviously if people are getting over time getting more restful sleep, they are more uh they they are better at coping, they are better at regulating their own moods, they're they're better at thinking through situations, and so insomnia is um is very frequently you know one of the the roots of psychological distress for people.

Doug Drohan 9:24

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I got up at mine tell you what time I woke up today, but I had a strange dream last night, woke me up. But again, that's not for the show. I can't talk all day about that. So so so this type of therapy is replacing the traditional uh medication, right? So if somebody's suffering from anxiety or whatever, there's always been well, not always, but in the last generation, this knee-jerk reaction to prescribe.

Speaker 2 10:01

The therapy that we do is um tends to be very solution focused, it tends to be um to some degree a little more like coaching, where the therapist is highly interactive, um, and we make it as fun as possible. So it's not like um, and and you know, obviously there's some issues where it's not gonna be fun, right? I mean, somebody experiences a devastating loss, they're very depressed, they're not gonna be having fun and laughing in therapy, um, especially in the beginning. But but our goal is that it's that therapy, therapy should be off uplifting. Um and um and also focus on overall health. So we do, you know, we do work with things like um nutrition and lifestyle and you know, various elements of health that we know to be directly related to mental health, like you know, like what you put into your body very much affects the brain. And traditionally, that was not an element at all that was considered in psychotherapy. Um, many of the therapists that I've known over the years, you know, honestly, in uh especially early on in my training, they had horrible diets themselves. So you're uh so you're not really gonna be working with your with your patient or we call them clients uh on changing their diet or examining how diet might be affecting their anxiety, and there's a direct, strong link between diet and anxiety. You're not gonna be necessarily guiding them in that direction if your own diet is hard. I mean, no offense to people with horrible diets, but uh so we, you know, so we we look at those things. We work closely with functional medicine uh doctors um who, you know, who again would be looking at a variety of different things that whether it be hormones, food sensitivities, heavy metal, toxicity, a variety of things that could in fact be creating what um psychiatrists would be medicating.

Post‑COVID Trends In Anxiety And ADHD

Doug Drohan 12:26

Got it. So I guess there's like a host of different specialties that you treat, like anxiety, ADHD, bipolar disorder. Uh, you work with children and adolescents, couples, right? Couples therapy, depression, uh, even life coaching that and the neural feedback that you spoke about. What um are you seeing any, I'll call it trends, any types of these specialties that are more prevalent today than say pre-COVID? And I and it's funny, you know, I think we have to classify everything, especially in psychology. Uh, you know, whether it's you know, there's AD and BC, now it's like, you know, AC after COVID. Like, what are you seeing in terms of um any of these things like anxiety or depression, um, or you know, the way children and adolescents were affected? Or have you seen a rise in any of these cases? I guess is what I'm asking.

Speaker 2 13:23

Well, I mean, certainly during COVID, I mean, mental health issues, you know, that's not a surprise, right? Or a secret um that that um anxiety disorders exploded, um, you know, psychiatric issues in general exploded for a variety of reasons. Uh, you know, people were socially socially isolate social isolation and loneliness became more of a focused upon topic during COVID. Um, and we do know that that the loneliness quotient uh is um, you know, I mean that's that's a factor that they have associated with depression and mental, you know, conversely, mental well-being, um, over the last, let's say, 30, 40 years. That we knew that to be one of the most uh one of the most uh constant variables that we saw over and over again. So, you know, obviously people, right? They either were very isolated or they were existing in their bubbles. Our our kids ended up with some, you know, some significant social development lags, um, as well as obviously academically, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and you know, we treat a lot of kids and adolescents with ADHD, and you know, these kids for an entire year or more doing their learning online.

Speaker 1 15:00

Yeah, yeah.

Social Anxiety, Isolation, And Relationships

Speaker 2 15:02

You know, it was uh extremely difficult. So we see, I would say, more holes than there were before in kids' educations, um social anxiety while people like while the people had social anxiety to begin with, believe it or not, there's a contingent of people who actually felt much better when they weren't being kind of like pushed to be out in the world. People have felt very comfortable, um, you know, kind of like being isolated once you once you continue to avoid whatever your phobia is about, it it uh it gets worse. So they have felt more comfortable uh to some degree, um, and there were more than one person that I treat was saying, like, yeah, I don't mind this. This is this is okay, this is fine. That anything that you anything you avoid over time that's related to anxiety is more apt to get um to get to get exacerbated. And then there's the flip side of people who realized, you know, couples, for example, that um that having more time together in in our area, there's a very high percentage of at least one um one spouse uh or one um one partner being a New York commuter. And so we had people who are having hours more in their day and they were care they were connecting with um with their significant others, and um and actually despite the you know, obviously the fact despite the fact that it was a pandemic and despite all of the negatives about what occurred, kind of savored an increased amount of family time, um, realized uh a fair amount of the time that they didn't want to go back to work full-time in this. Um and so it was interesting that a lot of like um there were a lot of enlightened moments for people that came out of that, uh, and as well as people who already had conflict, conflict that was moderated by the fact that they spent um hours and hours and hours out of the house, had other relationships outside. Now suddenly people not being able to look away, right? Like not being able to avoid looking at their relationship because their nuclear family, their marriage and their nuclear family was kind of like, you know, obviously assumed much more of the focus in a in a bubble during the pandemic.

Meet Bailey The Therapy Dog

Doug Drohan 17:47

Yeah, yeah. So I want to talk about your team and specifically Bailey. Well, that's um so Bailey is a licensed clinical, no, just kidding, Bailey is your therapy dog.

Speaker 2 18:01

Yeah.

Doug Drohan 18:02

So how old is Bailey?

Speaker 2 18:04

Um, so Bailey is um four years old now.

Doug Drohan 18:09

Okay, and he's a Labrador.

Speaker 2 18:12

Um uh Bailey is a she, yes.

Doug Drohan 18:14

Oh sorry, she's a Labrador, okay.

Speaker 2 18:16

And um, and Bailey is uh a therapy dog that we often use therapeutically for calming effect. Bailey is also our um our uh our welcomer. I guess she's our hostess. Okay uh literally goes into the wedding room and you know greets the new people and um and um and uh uh Bailey belongs actually to my partner, Stephanie Shapiro. Uh and um and we love her. And besides the dog here, hair here and there, uh she um she's she's beloved by all.

Doug Drohan 18:56

When I used to go to the Hamptons, there was this sign in a gift shop window that said, if you're lucky enough to live on the water, you're lucky enough. And I think if you're lucky enough to have a dog with you at your office, uh, you know, you're lucky enough. I mean, that's it's a great calming um kind of environment to walk in and be greeted by a dog or pooch. I have a dog, as he could probably tell I'm a dog.

Speaker 3 19:22

I can I can see from what you're gonna do.

Building A Private Practice And Lessons Learned

Doug Drohan 19:24

My dog was just outside in the snow and he just gave me the look like, hey, I'm I'm ready to come in. Because I I took him for a walk this morning, it was like 18 degrees, but he's a husky. And then he likes to sit out, he likes to sit out in the front lawn in the sun, and then eventually he's like, okay, I'm done. But um, I want to now go back a little bit uh because you're a business owner, right? You own this practice, you have a partner, but you guys run this practice. Um, you know, what is it like being a business owner? Because a lot of people that I talk to, uh, some of them, you know, they they the genesis of their of their company started during COVID or, you know. Because of the pandemic, or they lost their job and they followed their passion of doing something that they always wanted to do. But when the rubber meets the road of actually opening your door, so to speak, virtually or physically, uh, there's a lot that, you know, running a business that people don't know, and you kind of, you know, learn it on the fly. And if you're lucky enough, you have a mentor to help you and maybe do your homework. Uh, but a lot of people, you know, you're you went to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. You didn't go to business school, you didn't go to you didn't get a marketing degree. Uh, so what has it been like? Um, like talk to us about your journey from you know graduating, uh perhaps working at another practice to the point where you decided I want to start my own, you know, special, yeah, unique approach and have a business in individual.

How To Contact The Practice And Closing

Speaker 2 20:52

I can say uh I can say that I didn't spend too much time working for somebody else. Um, and that's I think the universe sort of laid it out for me that way. Uh I worked for one, I worked for one uh psychiatric hospital and after I was there and it was a wonderful experience, and after two and a half years, they actually folded um because of um because of uh re reports that they were like conducting some illegal billing activities. So I went from there directly into my own practice, um, and um because I didn't want to work for somebody else at that point, so I've really worked for myself for over 30 years, um and um which is kind of dating myself, so but I have worked for myself for a long time. Um and uh, you know, the advice that I would give, and I apologize because I'm I'm gonna run out of time actually in a minute, but um the the um the advice that I would give to somebody starting out new in private practice would be uh like like definitely on the business end if you don't know how to do it, yeah. Hesitate to use somebody that you can consult with who is an expert. Because many of these things back in the day, I had to learn, I hate to say learn the hard way, but I actually did learn the hard way. Um and uh and uh you know ultimately I ultimately I caught on. Um, but I I learned that delegating many things was the way to go for me.

Speaker 3 22:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:40

Um, delegating my billing, delegating things that no one prepared me for that in uh in my PhD school. And um, and so um, and uh, and of course, now of course, now things are quite different anyway, they're all automated and everything, but that's the advice that I would give somebody starting out is like if you don't know, make sure you are getting the advice of an expert. So don't have to make the kind of mistakes that I um that I made early on.

Doug Drohan 23:12

Yeah. So I know we gotta go, so let's quickly tell people how they can find you, contact you, it's the best way to reach.

Speaker 2 23:18

So um so they can certainly check us out at um at uh drsam von reich.com, and that's uh dr-s-am v-o-n-r-e-i-c-h e dot com. Um, or uh we have somebody live answering the phone, which is very unusual in our business. Uh uh her name is Noelle, she's lovely, 201-556-8210. Um, and uh yeah, we answer the phone all day long. So somebody presenting with a mental health issue is not gonna get a voicemail. Um, it's very rare that they're gonna get a voicemail, and we accommodate people quickly. Uh, and uh, and I feel like we provide a concierge level of care um that um that is our that is very much a part of our brand.

Doug Drohan 24:10

That's great. That's great. Well, thank you so much, uh Dr. Von Russ, for being on the show.

Speaker 2 24:14

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on the show today.

Doug Drohan 24:17

Yeah, we're just gonna have Chuck take us out. You now be right back if you have 30 seconds.

Speaker 1 24:22

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergen.com. That's gnpbergen.com or call 201 298 825.