Connection is everything.

Dr. Carson Brown (she/her) is a Minneapolis-based holistic psychiatrist who wants to hear your story. Let’s connect!

People often ask me if it’d depression to listen to other people’s trauma and despair all day.

In reality, my job is inspiring.

I get to watch people go from cowering in their house to starting a community garden. Folks who start off afraid to talk to people and end up joining a book club. I see patients who have spent their lives expending all their energy just trying to hold it together gain the capacity to go after what they want.

I love my job and feel lucky to do it. Because I have a front row seat to what’s possible when people have the right support.

My path out of overwhelm required more vulnerability than I ever expected.

I witness change processes all day long, and my own has been windy and unexpected. I had to metabolize trauma in individual and couples therapy. I started hormone replacement therapy and began a deep dive into my ancestral root culture. I discovered Joanna Macy and The Work That Reconnects, along with a caring climate community. I came to accept that I am a scientist who also talks to trees. Now if I can just start exercising more than once a month, I’ll be unstoppable.

Your path won’t look like mine, unless you happen to be really into foraging for elderflowers, coaching youth basketball, and filling Leuchtturm journals. I’m not done or cured; the path unfurls forever. But I know in my cells that it is possible to reconfigure one’s psyche around the gnarliest existential questions and emerge with deep wells of strength.

Let's talk.

My training, education & experience

    • University of California, San Francisco, MD

    • San Mateo County Psychiatric Residency Training Program

    • San Francisco Jung Institute

    • Institute for Health & Healing, California Pacific Medical Center

    • UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine

    • Board certified in Psychiatry

    • Licensed in Minnesota and California

    • Stanford University, BA, English

    • American Psychiatric Association annual meeting

    • Midwest Climate Summit

    • Minnesota Psychiatric Society

    • University of Wisconsin - Madison

    • San Mateo County Behavioral Health

    • Baywell Psychiatry Group

    • American Psychiatric Association

    • Climate Psychiatry Alliance

    • Twin Cities Work That Reconnects

  • “Healing roots and unsettling legacies.” Axtell et al. Changing Seasonality. Eds. Scott Bremer and Arjan Wardekker.

    Reframing Eco-Anxiety with the Work That Reconnects

    Comments in Eco-anxiety: Supporting clients through climate distress.

    Discussing eco-anxiety on What Brought You Here Today?

A few of my favorite things.

  • The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson

  • Freshwater, Akwaeke Emezi

  • How to Survive the End of the World, adrienne maree brown and Autumn Brown (podcast)

  • Nanette, Hannah Gadsby (comedy special)

  • My Grandmother’s Hands, Resmaa Menakem

  • How to Be an Adult, David Richo

  • Heartberries, Terese Marie Mailhot

  • Reinhabiting Reality, Freya Matthews

  • Sacred Instructions, Sherri Mitchell

  • The Resilient Activist

  • The Four Seasons Total Landscaping event of 2020

  • The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine Aron

Line drawing of a wildflower, possibly a thistle, with multiple serrated leaves on a dark background.
Get in touch.

I am here to attune to you.

Click here to set up a conversation and see how our connection feels to you.