Dr. Valencia Garcia

Dr. Valencia Garcia is a board-certified psychiatrist and the founder of Valence Integrative Psychiatry, a telehealth practice seeing adults located anywhere in Arizona. She provides comprehensive psychiatric evaluation and medication management for anxiety, depression, mood changes, ADHD, sleep difficulties, PTSD, and life transitions, and she holds the Perinatal Mental Health Certification (PMH-C) from Postpartum Support International.

She built the practice around a specific complaint about how psychiatry is often delivered. Her own description is that Valence is “not your average fast pace, churn and burn psychiatry practice” — appointments are long enough for careful listening and real questions, and treatment decisions are made through a shared decision-making model in which the patient’s input is expected rather than merely welcomed. An initial evaluation runs 75 minutes and covers current concerns, psychiatric and medical history, medications, family and developmental history, social history, and sleep and lifestyle before anything is recommended.

The integrative part of the work sits alongside prescribing, not instead of it. Sleep, nutrition, exercise, hormones, reproductive transitions, stress, social support, and daily routines are assessed as part of the clinical picture, and recommendations may include laboratory testing, supplement recommendations, lifestyle changes, sleep hygiene, stress management strategies, or a referral to a therapist. Where medication is indicated she covers selection, dose adjustments, side-effect and interaction monitoring, lab monitoring, treatment-response review, thoughtful tapering, and long-term planning — and she will discuss controlled substances when they are clinically indicated.

Perinatal and reproductive psychiatry is the area she is certified in and, by her own account, the area she came to personally: after a life-threatening birth trauma with her second child, her own recovery took an integrative path that still shapes how she practices. She works with preconception planning, pregnancy, pregnancy loss, postpartum depression and anxiety, birth trauma, PMDD, perimenopause and menopause, and fertility-related stress, and she has experience managing medication before conception, during pregnancy, and while breastfeeding. Her practice is not limited to reproductive mental health — her own FAQ makes that point directly — and ADHD evaluations, with both stimulant and non-stimulant options and behavioral strategies, are a distinct service.

Most appointments include supportive therapy and foundational CBT principles, though her primary work is evaluation and medication management; for patients who would benefit from ongoing psychotherapy she refers to therapists she trusts. Collaboration is part of why she joined Tandem Alliance — she values clear communication with a patient’s therapist and the rest of their care team, and she offers collaborative care consultations, second-opinion evaluations, and one-time consultations alongside ongoing management.

Dr. Garcia earned her Doctor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, where she was a Capstone Scholar, and completed her adult psychiatry residency at the University of Minnesota, serving as Chief Resident. She studied at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, graduating cum laude. She is a board-certified diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and her advanced training includes the Nutritional Psychiatry Certificate Program through the Integrative Psychiatry Institute and Challenging Cases in Perinatal Psychiatry through the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Academy. Sessions are held by secure telehealth in English, with evening and weekend appointments available, and every patient starts with a complimentary 15-minute consultation call.