Dr. Mayowa Adesina, DNP
I'm Mayowa Adesina, DNP, PMHNP-BC, a board-certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and founder of Fountain of Hope Medical Group, providing compassionate telepsychiatry care throughout California. With 16 years of clinical experience, I've built my practice on one conviction: mental health care begins with feeling truly heard. My path was unique. I completed a year of doctoral pharmacy study at UCSF School of Pharmacy, sparking my passion for psychopharmacology. I then spent years in high-acuity nursing, serving as Charge Nurse at Kaiser Permanente. I earned my Doctor of Nursing Practice from the University of Massachusetts Global and was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi and Sigma Theta Tau honor societies. This foundation in pharmacology and psychiatry helps me choose medications thoughtfully, especially if past treatments haven't worked. I treat patients across the lifespan, from professionals facing burnout, anxiety, and ADHD to people managing depression, bipolar disorder, trauma, and complex conditions. Every plan I create is rooted in evidence-based practice, combining thoughtful medication management with lifestyle approaches that support lasting change. What sets me apart is not just what I know, but how I make you feel: heard, respected, and genuinely cared for. Compassion isn't soft; it's clinical. Kindness creates safety, and empathy builds trust. Your privacy matters deeply to me, and I uphold strict confidentiality and HIPAA standards in everything I do. Outside the clinic, I live fully. I love working out, dancing, laughing at stand-up comedy shows, and spending time with friends and loved ones. I'm a foodie who will travel just for a great meal, and I once went skydiving outside Las Vegas because growth lives beyond fear. Whether you're seeking clarity, considering medication, or simply want a provider who listens, you don't have to figure it out alone. I'm here, and I'd be honored to help.
First session
Your first session is not a checklist. It's a conversation that says: "I hear you, and there is a path forward." Many clients come to me starting medication management for the first time, carrying fear, shame, or the weight of feeling broken. My goal is for you to leave that first session feeling three things: heard, hopeful, and unburdened. You won't be handed a prescription and ushered out. Instead, we'll sit down — virtually, but genuinely — and I'll listen to your story. Your symptoms, yes, but also your life, your values, your goals, your fears. From there, we'll build a plan together. If medication is part of that plan, you'll understand exactly why, how it works, what to expect, and what side effects to watch for. With my background in doctoral pharmacy study at UCSF before becoming a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, I bring a pharmacology lens that means I don't guess — I tailor. If medication isn't right for you, we'll explore therapy, lifestyle interventions like the walking-as-treatment approach I researched for my doctoral project, or a combination. You'll leave knowing we have a direction, and that I'm walking alongside you. With individuals, the space is intimate and deeply personal — we explore your inner world at your pace. With couples, I create a balanced, nonjudgmental container where both voices carry equal weight, helping partners hear each other, often for the first time in years. With families, I widen the lens — understanding dynamics, roles, and patterns that shape each member's experience while keeping everyone safe and respected. Whatever brings you here — anxiety, depression, ADHD, trauma, or simply the sense that something doesn't feel right — you don't have to figure it out alone. That's exactly what I'm here for. Your first session is the beginning of a partnership built on competence, warmth, and the belief that healing starts the moment you feel truly heard.
Strengths
Four strengths, rarely found together, set my approach apart. Pharmacology meets psychiatry. A year of doctoral pharmacy study at UCSF, followed by my DNP, grounded me in how medications work. I carefully weigh each medication's mechanism, interactions, side effects, and fit with your unique needs. I hold full California furnishing authority for psychotropic medications and am DEA-registered. If past medications failed or caused intolerable side effects, this care can mean finally finding the right fit. Evidence-based integrative care. I don't just prescribe and wave goodbye. I combine thorough psychiatric evaluation, medication management, and therapy, including CBT, solutions-focused therapy, and mindfulness, into one cohesive plan. As Principal Investigator of a DNP study on walking as a natural treatment for depression, I've seen how lifestyle changes amplify outcomes. Every recommendation is rooted in the latest research, because you deserve nothing less. 16 years of clinical experience across the lifespan. From Kaiser Permanente charge nurse to outpatient psychiatry, I've treated anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, OCD, PTSD, schizophrenia, postpartum depression, panic, and sleep disorders. I'm trained in trauma-informed care, crisis de-escalation, and risk assessment. I've seen the patterns, I recognize the subtleties, and I won't miss what others might. You're not my first complex case. You're the reason I trained this hard. Uncompromising confidentiality and privacy. Opening up takes courage, and I never take that trust lightly. I uphold HIPAA in every aspect of my practice, from secure telehealth visits to careful handling of your records and prescriptions. You can speak freely, knowing your story is safe with me. Privacy isn't a policy I follow; it's a promise I keep. Above all, I bring heart. Competence without compassion is just expertise. Compassion without competence is just warmth. I bring both, because you deserve a provider who is skilled and genuinely invested in you.
Ideal clients
My ideal client is someone ready to feel better, even if they're not sure where to begin. You may be a high-achieving professional quietly battling burnout, anxiety, or ADHD, a new parent navigating postpartum depression, a student finding your footing, or an adult who has lived with depression, bipolar disorder, trauma, OCD, panic, or sleepless nights for too long. Whatever your life stage, you're tired of pushing through alone and ready for real answers. Perhaps you've tried medications that didn't work or caused side effects you couldn't tolerate. Maybe you felt rushed, dismissed, or treated like a diagnosis instead of a person. You want a provider who takes time to listen, explains options clearly, and respects your voice in every decision. When it comes to medication management, my ideal client wants a thoughtful, collaborative partnership. Some are open to starting medication; others feel hesitant and want to understand the risks, benefits, and alternatives first. Both are welcome. I evaluate each medication's mechanism, interactions, and fit with your unique needs, and we adjust together until we find what truly works. I also value clients curious about whole-person care, including therapy, mindfulness, sleep, nutrition, and movement, because my research on walking as a treatment for depression showed me how powerfully lifestyle supports healing. You value evidence-based care, honesty, and privacy. You want to know your story is safe, and it will be. I uphold strict confidentiality and HIPAA standards in everything I do. Most of all, my ideal client wants more than symptom relief. You want to laugh again, reconnect with the people you love, sleep peacefully, enjoy your work, and rediscover the adventurous, joyful version of yourself. If that sounds like you, I'd be honored to walk beside you. Together, we'll build a path that fits your life, goals, and pace.
Treatment methods
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
Imagine your mind is a room. Sometimes the furniture is arranged in a way that makes it hard to move — thoughts pile up in corners, blocking the door, and before you know it, you're bumping into the same painful ideas every time you try to take a step forward. Cognitive behavioral therapy is, at its heart, the practice of rearranging that furniture. Not by pretending the clutter doesn't exist, but by looking at each thought, holding it up to the light, and asking: Is this actually true? Is this helping me? Or is this an old pattern I've outgrown? Here's what that looks like in our sessions. Maybe you come to me saying, "I always mess things up." That sentence feels like a fact to you — solid, immovable, part of who you are. But together, we'll slow it down. We'll look for the evidence. Has there ever been a time you got something right? What actually happened the last time things went sideways? Was it really you, or were there circumstances you're blaming yourself for that weren't yours to carry? Through this gentle, honest examination, that heavy sentence starts to lose its grip. It becomes a thought — not a truth. And once you can see it as a thought, you gain something powerful: the ability to choose a different one. I use this approach across nearly everything I treat — anxiety that whispers you're not safe, depression that insists nothing will change, panic that floods your body before your mind can catch up, the rigid worry loops of OCD, the sleepless spiral at three in the morning. In each case, the goal is the same: identify the thought patterns that are driving your distress, test them against reality, and replace them with something more accurate and more kind. But I don't use CBT in isolation. My practice blends medication management, cognitive behavioral therapy, solutions-focused therapy, and mindfulness-based interventions into one cohesive plan — because no single tool fits every person or every moment. Some clients need medication to quiet the noise before they can engage with the work. Others need mindfulness to learn how to sit with a feeling instead of running from it. My doctoral research on walking as a natural treatment for depression deepened my conviction that movement and lifestyle amplify clinical outcomes — so don't be surprised if we talk about sleep, exercise, or nutrition alongside our work with thoughts. Most importantly, this isn't homework I assign and grade. It's a conversation we have together, at your pace, with warmth and without judgment. You won't be asked to recite theories or master terminology. You'll be invited to notice, to question, and to practice — one thought at a time, one session building on the next — until the room of your mind becomes a place where you can move freely again.
Location
Virtual sessions