Success Stories

The following are some Testimonials from former clients. Names and ages have been changed to preserve confidentiality.

"Dr. Jacob did some pro bono work with me help me get over my fear of flying. He took a whole Friday off to do this work, flying with me from San Francisco to LA and back. His words and pep talk were super helpful and I ended up having a very successful flight with no panic attacks. It's the first time in many years that I have been able to fly and not have an attack. Dr. Jacob knew how to read me and the situation and provided just enough support that I was able to feel like I had accomplished the flight mostly on my own. He was there when I was in distress but faded support when he knew I could handle the situation. He gave great advice and we had a very productive day! Super stoked I got the chance to work with him."

--Juanita, 22

"Dr. Jacob Towery is the reason why I am still alive today. If it had not been for the work that I did with him, I would be a completely different, miserable, and most likely still depressed woman.

I started seeing Jacob when I was a sophomore in high school for depression and anxiety. I had already been struggling for a year beforehand and nothing seemed to be helping me (I was already seeing a therapist). Then my mom found Jacob and scheduled an appointment, both of us hoping that this would finally help me. After a couple of sessions, Jacob and I quickly created a strict routine for me to follow in order to cure my depression. He also taught me different ways to deal with my irrational thoughts and change my way of thinking.

I am now a Junior in college and I still occasionally see Jacob for a tune up of my skills. The type of therapy he practices does not only give you relief during sessions, it gives you tools that enable you to be successful in the future.

Dr. Towery never gave up on me even when I wanted to give up on myself. He had faith in me and never pushed me farther than I was comfortable. If you are given the opportunity to work with Jacob you are so lucky because he is a psychiatrist that genuinely wants to cure his patients as efficiently and effectively as possible. "

--Beatrice, 19

"If you are looking for a psychiatrist for your teenage daughter/son, husband/wife or friend - Dr. Jacob Towery is 100% the way to go. You probably know the proverb: "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." Jacob is not only an excellent therapist; he is an outstanding teacher. After only a few months of focused therapeutic work with him, I was happier and more fulfilled than I had ever been in my life - but more importantly, I have been able to successfully navigate the inevitable ups and downs of life since my therapy ended, thanks to the techniques and perspective that he imparted to me. I will always be deeply grateful for his guidance, talent, and compassion. I highly recommend him as a clinician."

-- Amy, 41

"Dr. Towery's treatment has been absolutely incredible. I came to him having gone through a year of situational depression with occasional bouts of self-harming. I had convinced myself that my new standard of living was that of sadness and emotional chaos, but even still, I wanted to get better. Dr. Towery had an engaging approach to treatment. We never just talked and ruminated about my problems, but rather worked proactively to find ways for me to combat my negative thinking and unproductive behaviors. Dr. Towery taught me a plethora of skills that I can and will use for the rest of my life. These skills are easy to use and, at least for me, never felt like a chore that I had to do in order to cure my depression. Furthermore, Dr. Towery pushed me to not only learn new skills but actually implement them with him. He would have me face my fears head on, and that was one of the main reasons I got better. I now feel completely in control of my emotions and thoughts thanks to Dr. Towery and his life-altering treatment."

--Nindini, 16

"Dr. Towery is an incredibly talented and versatile psychiatrist who has mastered an unlimited number of useful techniques to help bring meaning and increase the happiness in your everyday life. He has an extremely comforting and warm personality, which has allowed me to be completely open, honest, and calm during all of my sessions. Not only is he well tuned in the field of psychiatry but also has an extremely large knowledge of additional therapeutic tools such as poetry, readings, meditations, as well as guided imagery, which he seamlessly interweaves during his sessions. I would high recommend Dr. Towery to help guide you wherever your needs may be."

--Daphne, 23

"Dr Jacob Towery changed my life. I know that might sound dramatic, but it's true. I have had depression and Social Anxiety for over 20 years. I came to California from Arizona to meet with Dr. Towery for a week of intensives. In one week he is giving me daily habits to implement and other tools and techniques to deal with the negative thoughts that were causing my depression. He also took me out to face my fears to overcome my social anxiety.

I "feel" like a completely different person. The best part to me though, is that I'm still me, only without all the negative thoughts in my mind and the negative emotions that they caused. Now, I'm me, and I'm happy and I'm excited about life. I now have a "tool box" full of techniques, habits and methods to be able to maintain the incredible progress that I have made, and to deal with any relapse if that should happen.

I will be forever grateful to Dr. Towery for changing my life for the better! If you have depression or anxiety of any kind, go see Dr. Towery. You don't have to continue to suffer. He can help. Life truly can be amazing."

-Idelia, 31

"11/10 would recommend using Dr Towery. You may say "that's not possible" but I didn't think it was possible to get over my intense phobia of vomiting I'd had at least fifteen years, and I did!

I did everything from watching motion-sick videos, playing with fake vomit, spinning in circles, actually going to a park and getting dizzy enough to feel nauseas, and gagging.

You do get homework but quite frankly it makes you get over your fears faster if you're willing to put in the work, and it's not boring homework, it's actually quite fun sometimes!

Dr Towery is creative, super flexible, and adaptable in his techniques. He really allows you to guide each session and makes each session about what you want to do even if it means taking a hiatus from what you've been working on. I would definitely suggest giving his practice a try!"

--Leslie, 17

"I highly recommend Dr. Towery for both adults and adolescents. If I could, I would give Dr. Towery a thousand-star review. My entire family has been amazed by how much he's helped us in only a few months.

I initially contacted Dr. Towery regarding my sixteen-year-old son who was struggling with severe anxiety. Among other issues, my son had not consistently attended school in nearly two years. The former honors student and competitive athlete rarely left his room. My husband and I had consulted with numerous schools and an army of mental health professionals: school counselors, educational consultants, pediatricians, psychologists, neuropsychologists, psychiatrists and parent coaches. Sadly, our son was not improving. We didn't know how to help him and neither did anyone else.

My son refused to meet with any therapist--including Dr. Towery--during this time. Instead, I started therapy with Dr. Towery to treat my own anxiety and get additional guidance for my son. During each session, Dr. Towery focused his full attention on understanding my concerns and suggested the most effective techniques for that day. Dr. Towery expertly used cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to teach me how to change my distorted thoughts in order to feel better. Dr. Towery also helped me taper off an anxiety medication that another doctor had prescribed; it was actually making me feel worse and decreasing the effectiveness of therapy.

Dr. Towery assigned homework including reading several books, completing worksheets, exercising, volunteering, and meditating. Although this may sound daunting, Dr. Towery's firm yet warm, compassionate support convinced me to give it a try. Within several weeks, I was enjoying these activities and motivated to do even more. For instance, I am currently taking a course on compassion at Stanford based on Dr. Towery's recommendation.

The combination of therapy, medication adjustments, and homework all helped me rapidly overcome my anxiety including severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms that started several months before I contacted Dr. Towery.

Once I started feeling better, Dr. Towery strongly recommended that my son return to school in two weeks. I looked at him like he told me to fly to Mars; I didn't think it was possible. We then role-played difficult discussions I needed to have with my son. Dr. Towery perfectly anticipated my son's reactions so that I was calm and effective in the actual conversations. With Dr. Towery's continued coaching and reassurance, miraculously my son started at a new school within several weeks! Dr. Towery seemed almost as happy as I was. My son is now steadily overcoming his anxiety and re-engaging as a much happier and productive teenager.

I may have given up on this whole process were it not for my confidence in Dr. Towery and his ability to help me laugh even during stressful times. Thank you, Dr. Towery! I will remain eternally grateful and continue to practice what you've taught me."

--Anne, 46

"When I contacted Dr. Towery I was feeling depressed and unmotivated to the degree that it was affecting my everyday life. Before we began we talked about some of the method/practices of cognitive therapy and different topics we would focus on. At our first session and consistently thereafter, I have found him to be very welcoming, supportive and non-judgmental. When I opened up to him about many issues and obstacles in my life I felt a sense of genuine empathy. In total we did about 5 intensive sessions which were highly effective and every time each session was over I learned so many new cognitive techniques to apply to my daily life.

He helped me learn and equipped me with so many evidence based and logical strategies to dealing with thoughts and emotions. I began to accept different feelings and also learn more about myself and what I want in life. After completing our sessions I left feeling great and the happiest I have felt in a long time. I'm no longer feeling depressed and I am enjoying life more and am thriving. I have the motivation and determination to continue to keep moving forward. I highly recommend scheduling a session with him and would like to note that his practice seems high in demand and often requires booking sometimes a few weeks in advance. Dr. Towery is immensely knowledgeable and highly skilled on a variety of areas and approaches and he has a sincere passion for what he does. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work on a variety of important everyday life topics with such an intelligent, kind, and authentic individual."

--Jamal, 21

"Our family could not be more thrilled and grateful for Dr. Towery's treatment of our 16-year-old daughter. Dr. Towery's effective methods of treating our daughter gave her life back to her; and gave us our daughter back. We went to Dr. Towery after our daughter had suffered from severe anxiety, which grew into bouts of depression for 14 months. It all started with a sudden onset panic attack (due to a perfect storm of events) in her Sophomore year of High School. Everything changed drastically overnight. Our daughter went from being a very high achieving student who participated in a number of extracurricular activities into a girl who became afraid of everything.

She had seen a number of Psychiatrists and Psychologists and nothing changed significantly. It seemed the more she received these other treatments, the worse her condition became. She withdrew from school and started taking her courses online.

Dr. Towery's treatment showed us that our daughter needed to learn tools to challenge her thoughts. She also needed exposure to all of the fears that had manifested. Dr. Towery's confidence in his methods and compassionate manner enabled him to literally walk with our daughter while she faced her worst fears (doing extremely embarrassing things in a public place, visiting busy schools and classrooms, approaching and talking to strangers, volunteering to speak up in a college classroom, etc.). The things she was able to do with his guidance and encouragement were amazing.

She felt stronger every time she faced a fear and overcame it. It is surprising how quickly the fear disappeared. Once she knew she had faced it and "survived," the fear was gone. Dr. Towery gained our daughter's trust quickly and she was willing to follow his techniques, as scary as they seemed, in order to regain her life. He was very direct in his expectations that he can only be successful with a patient who is willing to follow his advice. He is direct because he knows what works. Dr. Towery delivers this message in such a compassionate way that our daughter knew his methods were not going to be easy, but believed they were going to be successful. A super helpful thing he did was to allow our daughter to record exercises and conversations so she could play them back for herself.

We saw Dr. Towery on "an emergency basis" for intensive treatment as she really wanted to get back to school. She spent 20 hours with him over 2 weeks. Less than 2 weeks after completing her treatment with Dr. Towery, she re-entered her high school. While there were a few anxious moments her first day, she had the tools to work through them. She is now completing her first month back and is more engaged than ever. Thank you Dr. Towery, you are one of a kind and absolutely amazing!"

--Christine, 48

"I have been seeing Dr. Towery for over a year and with his help, I have completely changed my life and way of thinking. With his help, I have been able to communicate with others, he helped me find my true self and motivated me to pursue my dreams even when I was scared. Dr Towery has helped me overcome many obstacles and change my way of thinking. I would highly recommend Dr. Towery to anyone who is ready for a change and to overcome obstacles they may have. I would not have the relationships or be in the same position I am in today without Dr. Towery’s help."

--Chris, 24

"As a mother of a teen who was in treatment with Dr. Towery, we are forever grateful. He has an authentic and genuine manner that allows for a teen to engage in therapy especially when they are at their lowest point. He connects in a caring manner but sets limits while modeling appropriate ways to deal with feelings and thoughts. His approach is thoughtful and requires everyone involved to be an active participant in the treatment process. While we may have been one of the few who had a teen at such a low point we found his approach, methodology and tools that we all walked away with invaluable. For us, for our daughter, there is no one else I would enlist for help in treatment."

--Susan, 52

"Dr. Towery is both an expert in his field and a humanizing influence. He treads the fine line between compassion and pity with ease and makes seemingly insurmountable problems suddenly appear trivial. All the while, he teaches effective techniques for dealing with whatever issues may arise. The results are beyond what I thought I could hope for: a year ago, I was having enough trouble with depression and anxiety that it was unreasonably hard to function; today, I am thriving as a first-year student in college."

--Mark, 18

"I went to see Dr. Towery because of a persistent problem with anxiety that was interfering with my life in a bad way. Even though Dr. Towery told me before we started that my anxiety was eminently treatable, I was pretty pessimistic about my chances of becoming less anxious. I've now had four sessions with Dr. Towery and my anxiety is melting away! It's incredible. The secret is that Dr. Towery mostly doesn't do "talk therapy" (and in my case also didn't prescribe any drugs!) but teaches you specific behavorial and cognitive strategies for tackling the anxiety and improving your outlook on life in general. That means that after you walk out of his office, you have a bag full of tools you can fall back on every single moment of the day -- which is so much better than the therapist himself being your support system! I feel like a car that's been taken to the mechanic and is getting fixed (with instructions on how to keep the engine running smoothly)."

--Annie, 39

"Dr. Towery was extremely skilled in treating our 16 year old daughter, who he diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder that presented itself suddenly. What was most helpful to me was his reassurance that GAD is treatable and gave me hope that she would one day function completely normally. It's been three years since the onset of her GAD, and she has used, and is still using, the tools that Dr. Towery gave her to not only cope with, but to overcome anxiety during difficult times. She's off to college and doing beautifully in every area of her life, thanks to Dr. Towery's help!"

--Angela, 43

"I am so appreciative of Jacob’s precise, yet gentle, identification of the roots of the issues, problems or disagreements that we brought to him. Even my teenager, who had good reason not to like therapists, thought Jacob was great from our very first session.

Jacob is a master therapist and human relations expert. I am grateful to him in every session, knowing that he gives us the highest level of his expertise and willingness to help. It’s as if he has a kind of intuitive monitor in his head that says, “What is the very best use of my ability in this moment?” And then that’s what he gives you.

Having won over my teenage son at our very first meeting, Jacob later was able to help dissolve a long-held resentment within my son towards me. I had tried, and been unsuccessful. Jacob artfully crafted examples that helped turn on a light bulb in my son’s mind, forever freeing us both from the separation created by that misperception."

--Sarah, 51

"My name is Tanner, and I recently had the pleasure of working with Jacob in Palo Alto, California. I live in Phoenix Arizona, and made a trip all the way out to California to receive treatment for depression and anxiety.

My expectations for the trip were extremely high, and let me tell you- Those expectations were fulfilled and then some! I honestly cannot imagine a more caring, kind-hearted, and skilled therapist anywhere. I believe this holds some credibility as well, as I have seen many therapists in the past and none of them were comparable in the least to Jacob.

So what is it that makes Jacob so distinguished from the rest? Well for starters, he is an individual who actually cares enough about his patients to take the time to get to know them and build a relationship with them. He isn't the kind of doctor whose mentality is, "Let me act like I'm interested for a couple hours, while I put on a fake smile." It is extremely obvious from his calm and friendly demeanor that he is an individual who cares deeply for his patients.

One thing that I always found to be an extremely subtle yet powerful display of friendliness and care was when Jacob would ask at the beginning of sessions if I cared for anything to "drink or snack on" during the session. I would think to myself, "Wow! This is a guy who actually cares a lot about making me feel comfortable and welcome!"

Another facet of the therapy that I really enjoyed was the fact that each session is basically customized to each individual patient. Let me explain; if you as the patient go into your appointment and you're having a really tough time with anxiety that day, and you feel like working on some exercises to help with the anxiety, Jacob is all for working on it with you. The same applies to depression and many other things. What I'm really getting at here is that Jacob does not at all force a preconceived idea of what therapy should be like for you as the patient that day. The sessions are 100% about what you want to do. Now, that's not to say that he doesn't have a back-up plan just in case you're drawing a blank that day on what to work on. If you've ever had a pushy therapist before, you'll completely understand what I mean when I say that it can be so frustrating when another individual feels like he knows what is best for you, and thus forces ideas upon you.

Such is not the case with Jacob. One thing that I absolutely loved doing while I was there was actually getting out of the office during our appointment to spend some time together. That's right! Jacob and I were actually able to walk around Palo Alto and spend time working on real-life situations of overcoming anxiety. I was amazed when this idea was brought up! After all, it has seemed to become the orthodox for therapy to revolve around strictly stationary building work, not moving around at all or getting out of the office.

The idea came up when Jacob and I brainstormed what we could work on that particular day and decided upon, "Feeling more comfortable around people." Jacob suggested that we go for a walk to work on an exercise aimed at alleviating the anxiety I had associated with talking to strangers. The first part of the exercise was to say "Hello" or "Good Morning" to five people while walking down the street. That was easy enough, but the next part was certainly more challenging. Jacob suggested that I go into a couple different stores and hold a two-or-three-minute conversation with one of the workers in each store. I very hesitantly agreed, and to make me feel more confident with the exercise, he actually dove in and did it himself! Wow! Now, there is someone I respect, a man who practices what he teaches! After seeing how well his conversation went I was ready to try my own. I cannot even explain how much fun I ended up having with the exercise. It made me feel so good to overcome the anxiety I sometimes felt when speaking to strangers.

I have just barely scratched the surface of how much I truly respect and care for Jacob. But I will say one other thing: Jacob is an absolute master of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and the insight he can offer into overcoming anxiety, depression through CBT is absolutely invaluable. In closing and summary, Dr. Jacob Towery is truly a one-of-a-kind doctor. An individual who cares, who is unique, who is creative, friendly, welcoming, and truly respectable, Dr. Towery is an amazing person. And I only regret one thing about the time we spent together: It went by too darn quick! "

--Tanner, 24