Peter Bongiorno

“When you have anxiety, depression, or any mental health concern, you really feel like it’s beyond your control,” Bongiorno says. “I love to work with people and get them to the place where they realize they do have a lot of control over their condition. It brings the power back to their life.”

That understanding of what it means to feel helpless in the face of a health crisis traces back to a moment early in his career. After earning a dual bachelor’s degree in biology and English literature, Bongiorno conducted research at Yale University and then at the National Institutes of Health. During this time, he watched a close friend receive a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis—and then, unexpectedly, begin to improve after seeing a naturopathic doctor. Upon looking at the supporting research himself, he found years of evidence he had not known existed. “That was my aha moment,” Bongirono says. “I knew I wanted to study integrative medicine.”

Bongiorno went on to earn a master’s degree in acupuncture and a doctorate in naturopathic medicine from Bastyr University.

After graduating, he moved to New York city, where his focus on mental health grew organically from practice. When Bongiorno began seeing patients in New York in the early 2000s, he noticed a significant number were managing mood-related conditions with medications that addressed symptoms but not their underlying causes. Around that time, his mentor, psychiatrist and researcher Julio Licinio, MD, PhD, invited him to write a chapter on complementary and alternative approaches to depression for a two-volume textbook on the biology of depression. The chapter revealed a striking gap. “What I realized was that there was very little information about depression from an integrative perspective, and there was certainly nothing that was really well collected in this way,” Bongiorno says.

That research became the foundation for Bongiorno to write what is now widely recognized as the first comprehensive integrative medicine textbook on depression, published in 2010. He has since written three additional books for clinicians and the general public.

In his work with patients, Bongiorno approaches mood and mental health as inseparable from the rest of the body. “When you think about why people are experiencing poor mood, it’s usually because of a lot of factors, including digestion, inflammation, nutrient deficiencies, or not sleeping well, among others,” he says. “So when you work on mood, you need to know about everything else. This has made me a good generalist.”

Whenever he meets a new patient, he conducts a thorough review of their systems, labs, social history, sleep, nutrition, hydration, and stress to build what Bongiorno calls a framework for support. He then works with each person to develop personalized recommendations that can combine movement and sleep optimization, dietary changes, stress reduction, targeted supplementation, and more. “We use natural methods to help shift the body in the right direction,” he says.

In addition to his private practice, Bongiorno previously served as Integrative Medicine Director at SohoMD, where he established an integrative medicine program for the large telepsychiatry group. He has also served for years on faculty at Psychiatry Redefined, a professional education organization founded by psychiatrist James Greenblatt, MD, with a mission to teach clinicians how to find the underlying reasons people struggle with mental health rather than solely managing symptoms with medication. There, Bongiorno teaches foundational and specialty courses to psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and social workers, and leads regular fellowship programs that bring integrative practices into mainstream psychiatric training.

At Atria, Bongiorno has found a collaborative model of care that reflects what he believes medicine should look like. “I'm always learning so much listening to all the other smart people around me, and hopefully I'm giving some of that back, too,” he says. He also appreciates the way his colleagues are invested in doing research and moving medicine forward. “As a result, patients get better care,” he adds. “They have a number of minds thinking together as a team for them, and the care is so comprehensive. It’s truly unique.”

Bongiorno is a sought-after speaker and frequently lectures at top integrative medicine conferences. Outside of medicine, he is a musician. Bongiorno has been playing drums since he was 11. He also enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with his daughter.