Dr. Ani Tokat, MD

So you find a psychiatrist for your mental health. But when an emergency comes up and you need to cancel a few hours under the 24 hour notice (20/22hours notice) you are charged the full visit amount $395.00 putting you in even more mental stress and financial hardship. Thank you Ani for a horrible experience. Clearly you are all about money and not helping people. The documents you took time to prepare clearly were auto generated where you enter the patients name.

I have never met a genuinely caring doctor like Dr. Tokat. She never rushes me. She listens carefully. She's thoughtful and realistic. She's incredibly respectful. I thought doctors only prescribed! But not her. I trust her! She's the complete package...a doctor and therapist in one!

As a first time mom, I was ashamed to tell anyone about the horrible thoughts I had about my baby. I had no idea why and where they were coming from! I cried every day. I thought I was going crazy. I thought my baby would be better off without me. This isn’t how I had expected motherhood to be. I asked for a referral from my doctor, and he recommended Dr. Tokat. I was really nervous about the first appointment and almost cancelled. What a warm welcome I got from Dr. Tokat. From the beginning she let me know that I was not a symptom to her but rather a human being. I ended up telling her things I have never mentioned to anyone in my life. I couldn’t believe how comfortable I felt! She then asked me that one magic question, one I was ashamed to talk about, and I simply burst into tears! She understood me! She heard me! She did not judge! She assured me I was not alone! I was diagnosed with postpartum depression and OCD. I had never heard of postpartum OCD. Dr. Tokat taught me a lot. … If you have sessions with her, you will see she loves to educate. Her goal is to empower you and have you gain control over your life! No amount of words can show how thankful and grateful I am that I met Dr. Tokat. She saved my family! If any moms out there are currently struggling, please don’t delay your care. There is real help with Dr. Tokat.

I have been seeing Dr Tokat for many years. I suffer from depression, anxiety and sleep disorder. She has taught me so much about managing my conditions through therapy, medication, and lifestyle changes. Her compassion, dedication, and knowledge is better than any psychiatrist I’ve ever seen. She doesn’t just spend 5 minutes with me and prescribe meds like other doctors. Highly recommend this amazing doctor if you need quality psychiatric care.

I’ve had a great experience with Dr. Tokat. She is very compassionate, caring and professional. She listens and makes me feel heard. She’s had a tremendously positive effect on me and helped me greatly with my depression. I feel very well taken care of by her. Not every psychiatrist will work for everyone. I’m grateful I found one who is not only an expert in her field, but who actually has been good for me.

I have never written a review for a doctor, but my experience with Dr. Tokat haunts me, and I feel compelled to put it into words and hopefully save someone some suffering. I sought Dr. Tokat’s support due to anxiety and depression. I was impressed because she had great reviews, she positioned herself as an expert in women’s health, she took a more thorough history of me than any psychiatrist had, insisted on blood tests before prescribing anything new, told me she was against poly pharmacy and said she tried not to prescribe benzodiazepines unless absolutely necessary. These were all positives for me. After months of waiting for my appointment with her, finally meeting her gave me so much hope that I would find the method to managing my anxiety and depression after 15 years of suffering. I don’t know exactly where things went wrong. Somewhere along the way, Dr. Tokat told me I likely had bipolar II, despite never experiencing a manic or hypomanic episode in my life. She made this… deduction because I had never found an antidepressant that helped me. She changed the direction of my medication from antidepressants to mood stabilizers, benzodiazepines, and antipsychotics. Any time I expressed concern about the medication or its side effects, it seemed like she would get annoyed. Like she didn’t want me to do my own research about the drug I would put into my own body. She did not go over all the side effects of medications with me, just the main one a drug had. Over the course of one year, she put me on 6 different medications, and I was steadily feeling worse and worse. Suddenly, I was exhibiting OCD behavior (intrusive thoughts), my panic attacks were increasing, I had to sleep with my mother on most nights, I lost my interest in my favorite hobbies like reading, and I could not focus or think clearly. She took these all as signs that my illness was worsening, and thus, medications must be adjusted or increased to better help me. In all honesty, I became nervous for our appointments. I felt like she belittled me and was condescending, despite keeping a smile on her face. There were a couple of times when she or her office made a mistake with not ordering enough medication or not reading my lab tests, and she put the blame back on me. At one point, when I asked her why I wasn’t getting any better despite the medications, exercising, meditating, praying, good sleep hygiene, and going to counseling, she told me I would never get better until I was on an optimal dose of medication because I have a “disease” that needed to be treated with meds. Dr. Tokat gaslighted me into believing her. But somehow, underneath it all, I felt that she was wrong. I didn’t like the direction she was taking my medication to, and I just felt more and more horrific with each med change. So I politely asked for her support to withdraw me from all medications. She vehemently said I was going against her medical advice. I later found that she would write in my medical records that my judgment and insight were no longer “in tact.” But she could not force me to take medication. She said she would withdraw me safely and discharge me, because she cannot keep a patient on who is not on medication. Dr. Tokat withdrew me off of an antipsychotic, a benzodiazepine, and a mood stabilizer over the course of five weeks. Three drugs in five weeks -- including an addictive benzo -- for someone who has been on medication for 11 years. I started vomiting and becoming dizzy. When I expressed this to her, she said that it was my anxiety, and that those symptoms would only increase if I wasn’t medicated. She did not believe that a person could be going through psychiatric withdrawal -- a term she felt was for street drugs, not psychiatric medication. Well, Dr. Tokat, psychiatric drug withdrawal is a real thing, whether you believe it or not. I no longer opened up to her much about my withdrawal symptoms. The night after my final appointment with her, just days after I took my last dose of the mood stabilizer and benzo, I started convulsing. For two weeks, I experienced seizure-like convulsions. I did not eat, vomited incessantly, twitched, and did not sleep for five days straight. My mind was plagued with the most horrific thoughts. My beautiful, entire extended family helped me -- my brother, mother, father, aunts and cousins. They held me while I convulsed in bed. Helped me change my clothes. Walked me to the bathroom. When it felt like the symptoms were only getting worse, not better, I called Dr. Tokat’s office multiple times. I did not receive a response. Finally, I got in with a different psychiatrist for an emergency visit, and had an appointment with my primary care physician, and both doctors said that Dr. Tokat withdrew me off of medication way too quickly, and that it was irresponsible for her to discharge me without following up with me after the withdrawal. I was prescribed more medication by the psychiatrist to stabilize me. Eventually, I did schedule a follow up with Dr. Tokat, and I made sure my family attended the session with me. Never have I seen someone so defensive. She insinuated that I did not take the medication as prescribed. She blamed my autoimmune condition on my response to the withdrawal. She acted like she had no idea what I was talking about. Still feeling vulnerable and attached to her, I asked if she would take me back as a patient. She said no. Now, I realize that this was the biggest blessing. I read the book “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” which gave me the confidence that I am not sick, nor do I have a chemical imbalance that needs to be fixed. With family support, I returned to work, finished my doctoral program with a 4.0 GPA, and slowly withdrew off of my medication. Now, I am almost completely off of the benzo and will withdraw off of the sedative I was prescribed for sleep next. I feel stro

Very thorough, thoughtful and caring.