A psychiatrist for traders
Theodore Germanos, MDTriple board-certified — adult, child & adolescent, and addiction medicineTrading psychology is usually taught by coaches and educators. I approach it as medicine. I am a triple board-certified psychiatrist — adult, child & adolescent, and addiction medicine — and I trade my own account. That combination means the mental side of trading gets evaluated with clinical tools: diagnosis where a condition exists, treatment where it helps, and honest guidance where it does not.
Why a psychiatrist, specifically
Coaching and trading psychology have real value, and many traders benefit from them. A psychiatrist adds the medical layer. What looks like a discipline problem is often something more specific: ADHD that rewards impulsivity until it doesn’t, anxiety that shows up as hesitation on good setups or as overtrading after losses, depression that flattens the judgment a strategy depends on, sleep debt that quietly changes risk-taking, or drinking that has become part of the routine. Those are evaluable, treatable medical conditions — and treating them changes trading in ways willpower alone does not.
What traders bring to me
Revenge trading and loss-chasing. Positions sized by emotion rather than plan. The inability to pull the trigger on a valid setup. Escalating time and money that gets hidden from a spouse. The aftermath of a blown account, and the flatness or dread that follows. Decision fatigue by early afternoon. Patterns that have drifted toward gambling. Some of this is performance work, some of it is clinical — the evaluation is where we find out which, and nothing is decided before evaluation.
I know the terrain
Because I trade, you will not spend sessions explaining what a drawdown is or why an FOMC afternoon feels different. The evaluation can be specific to how you actually trade — instruments, timeframes, sizing, rituals — rather than generic. I also run Psychiatrade, a free educational screener that surfaces the behavioral patterns most relevant to trading; it is a private place to start before any appointment.
Further reading there: why you keep losing money · how to stop revenge trading · trading anxiety · after a blown account · ADHD and trading.
Apply
A short application — about 5–7 minutes, no card required.
Evaluation
A thorough diagnostic conversation.
Plan
Treatment built to fit, with unhurried follow-ups.
What is a trading psychiatrist?
A licensed physician, board-certified in psychiatry, who applies clinical evaluation and treatment to the mental side of trading — from performance work to diagnosable conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, depression, and gambling disorder. The medical training is what distinguishes it: a trading psychiatrist can diagnose, treat, and prescribe when medication is the right addition to treatment.
How is this different from a trading coach or trading psychologist?
Coaches and psychologists work on skills, habits, and mindset, and that work is valuable. As a physician I can also evaluate and treat the medical conditions that often sit underneath trading problems, and prescribe when medication is the right addition to treatment. Many traders benefit from both kinds of help.
Do I need a diagnosis to work with you?
No. Many of the traders I see have no psychiatric diagnosis at all — the work is performance-focused. The evaluation determines what is actually going on; nothing is decided before evaluation.
Do you work with traders outside California?
Medication prescribing is available for California residents. Traders in other states — or outside the U.S. — can still apply for mental training and performance work. Your specific situation is confirmed during the application.
Is compulsive trading really an addiction?
It can be. Compulsive trading often follows the same clinical architecture as gambling disorder — loss-chasing, escalation, secrecy, continuing despite consequences. When it does, it responds to the same evidence-based treatments. More on the gambling & behavioral addiction page.
Also see: Performance psychiatry · Gambling & behavioral addiction · ADHD