Dr. Sridhar Yaratha is an experienced forensic and addiction psychiatrist who holds medical degrees from Spartan Health University and the West Virginia School of Medicine. Currently, Dr. Sridhar Yaratha leverages this education and decades of medical experience as a psychiatrist at Gateway Homes in Chesterfield, Virginia.
Gateway Homes has provided mental health support services in a residential setting since its founding in 1983. A nonprofit organization, Gateway offers services that range from case management and counseling to psychosocial rehab and skills training at its 36-acre campus. The organization currently adheres to a three-step approach to treat those with serious mental illness.: Supportive living center - The first step takes place at Gateway’s housing and residential treatment facilities, and involves an individualized treatment plan. Residents receive support with medication management and daily living in addition to skills training, counseling, and classroom-based education. Supportive living apartments - The second step takes place in on-campus apartment living, where staff help residents learn to live independently. In addition to receiving ongoing mental health support, residents learn socialization and vocational skills. Independent living in the community - Lastly, residents move to the community, where they receive ongoing case management on a weekly basis.
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Having served as the director of inpatient psychiatry at VA Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Sridhar Yaratha is currently a psychiatrist with Gateway Homes, where he provides care to people living with chronic mental disabilities. An active member of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, Dr. Sridhar Yaratha has extensive knowledge of recovery pathways for patients with substance abuse issues and has a strong interest in the field.
As defined by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, addiction is both a mental illness and an intricate brain disorder that involves a chronic imbalance in motivation, memory, reward, and related brain circuitry. Over the past few decades researchers have found that an addict's environment matters. To test this theory, one classic study provided rats kept in cages with a pair of options: to drink from a regular bottle of water or from a bottle of morphine-water. During the course of the study, out of the 10 rats, 9 selected the morphine-water compulsively and to the point of death. However, Dr. Bruce K. Alexander discovered a flaw in this study in the early 1980s and chose to conduct his own experiment. Instead of keeping the rats alone in cages, Dr. Alexander constructed an enriched environment known as Rat Park, which included access to games, toys, socialization, and sex. The result was that a majority of the rats did not partake in drinking the morphine-water. Even those that did drink morphine-water imbibed in much smaller amounts than the rats in the earlier study. With morphine-water readily available, they did not display addictive forms of behavior. Dr. Alexander's study ultimately led to the conclusion that one's social environment can have a major impact in determining the form and scope of addictive behavior. |
AuthorSince 2006, Dr. Sridhar Yaratha has worked for Central State Hospital in Petersburg, Virginia, as a forensic psychiatrist and attending physician for the men’s long-term forensic unit. Archives
January 2020
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