About
Fifteen years in critical care, then a psychiatric nurse practitioner license, then a fellowship in functional and integrative psychiatry, because I got tired of meeting people at the end of a problem that started years upstream.
The receipts
Six things I earned the slow way, and what each one actually means.
Certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center in psychiatric mental health across the lifespan. I'm the prescriber in the room: assessment, diagnosis, medication management, and the tapering conversations nobody books enough time for.
The terminal practice doctorate, conferral expected December 2026. Plain version: training to read a study, notice where it overreaches, and change what happens in an appointment because of it. This card gets updated the day it's official.
Fifteen years in a cardiovascular ICU. I saw what chronic, unmanaged stress physiology costs a body once it runs out of reserve, which is exactly why I now teach the upstream version.
Post-graduate training in the metabolic, nutritional and lab-informed layer of psychiatry. Ferritin, thyroid, B12, blood sugar, sleep. Layered on top of real pharmacology, never sold as a replacement for it.
Outpatient telehealth psychiatry, live caseload, right now. Nothing gets taught here that hasn't been pressure-tested in a real appointment first.
Psychiatry Redefined's provider certification, earned August 2026 and signed by James Greenblatt, MD. It covers the nutritional, metabolic and lab-informed workup underneath an ADHD presentation: ferritin and iron status, zinc, magnesium, omega-3s, blood sugar stability, sleep architecture, layered onto standard stimulant and non-stimulant management. Not instead of it. It is the training behind why I ask about your labs and your breakfast before I touch your dose.
Verify this certificateHow I got here
Chapter one
CVICU. Codes, drips, families in the worst hour of their lives. I learned stress physiology from the inside out, in bodies that had run out of reserve.
Chapter two
I wanted to meet people before the crisis. PMHNP-BC, then outpatient psychiatry: anxiety, ADHD, depression, and the high-functioning people who look fine on paper.
Chapter three
A DNP in progress for the research literacy (conferral expected December 2026) and a fellowship for the metabolic and nutritional layer. Not anti-medication, pro-full-picture.
Now
The Reset Framework™ came out of saying the same five things in every appointment. So I wrote them down and put them here.
High-functioning doesn't mean regulated. It usually just means well-practiced at hiding the cost.Dara Castillo, PMHNP-BC
The honest version
Before you ask
My clinical practice is separate from this site, and availability changes. Email me and I'll tell you honestly where things stand, including if a referral would serve you better.
No. It's the layer underneath both. Regulation tools make therapy stick and often make medication work more predictably. They don't replace either one, and I'll never pretend otherwise.
Yes. If it's on that page, it's in my house, on my face, or in my own training history. Affiliate commission never decides what makes the list.
Because medication changes the signal and regulation changes the environment the signal lands in. I prescribe. I also know that light, sleep, minerals, and a widened pause change how much medication a person needs to feel human.
Please do. Repost, screenshot, send it to the friend who needs it. Just keep my name on it so people can find the source.
Five tools, six-minute read, free. It's the fastest way to know whether my approach is for you.
