My Journey

Caring with Body, Word, and Presence

I am a psychiatrist, educator, researcher, and caretaker of the human soul. But before any title, I am someone deeply interested in people’s pain and blossoming.

From a very young age, I understood that we all share a common need: the need to be truly heard — that kind of listening that quiets itself to receive the other, becoming a transformative force. With clear purpose, discipline, and commitment, I entered Medicine, graduating in Salvador/BA from the Bahiana School of Medicine, experiencing an invaluable exchange program in Hungary, and immersing myself in Psychiatry as a path to integral care.

My path in Psychiatry began in crowded outpatient clinics, overnight shifts, and stories that demanded much more than medication. At the Hospital Juliano Moreira, still in Salvador, I learned that technique matters — but the bond is irreplaceable. I had mentors and partners whose exchanges deeply enriched my way of seeing the world.

My commitment to technique has always remained strong, and I earned the Specialist Title in Psychiatry from the Brazilian Association of Psychiatry (2020) on my first attempt. After three intense years of residency, I worked in several public and private services: as the sole liaison psychiatrist in a general hospital, providing ongoing medical education, in psychiatric emergency services, day hospitals, full-time inpatient units, child and adolescent mental health centers (CAPS I, II, III), and Telepsychiatry for vulnerable regions in Brazil.

Early on, I realized that mental health goes far beyond the absence of symptoms. It is built in relationships with others, in the environment, culture, and each person’s unique history.

Along this path, my role as a preceptor for medical students during their first encounter with a patient in psychological distress had an irreversible impact on me. I rediscovered my passion for sharing. But my work has also crossed physical borders.

I lived in Toronto and studied in Montréal, collaborating on research with colleagues from around the world. At the Summer Program in Social and Cultural Psychiatry at McGill University (2025), I gained deeper insight into the role of culture and trauma in ways of falling ill.

Currently, I am part of the research team at the SHERPA Institute (in collaboration with McGill), in Montréal, investigating how adverse childhood experiences impact suicide risk among LGBTQIA+ immigrants and racialized people. I also work as the Mental Health Team Leader at AZ Health Informatics in Toronto and as a Visiting Scholar at Concordia University, also in Montréal.

These spaces have broadened my perspective and connected me to global causes. But keeping my feet in clinical practice — meeting real people who cry, resist, and fight — has been the ongoing source of meaning in my mission.

Over time, I realized that the care I offer needed a worldview that sustains my personal purpose, inseparable from my professional one. That’s how Yoga, Buddhism, and Naturopathy came into my life.

I became certified as a Yoga teacher (Yoga Alliance, 2021), completed a postgraduate degree in Naturopathy, and began studying mind-body approaches. I developed practices focused on trauma and emotional regulation at the Trauma-Informed Practice Institute (Vancouver, BC). I also specialized in neuromodulation — TMS and ECT (Brazilian Association of Brain Stimulation, 2020), maintaining a commitment to cutting-edge techniques.

The journey has been long, and I am grateful for every open path and every soul I have exchanged with. Today, my sessions can combine medication and breathwork, psychotherapy and silence, mantra and science, listening and structure.

by Dr. André Luiz Figueirêdo