Team of Professionals

Bobby W. Nelson, M.D., D.L.F.A.P.A.

Board-certified Psychiatrist

Bobby W. Nelson, M.D., D.L.F.A.P.A., is a Board certified psychiatrist who has practiced adult psychotherapy with individuals and couples for more than 47 years, utilizing a variety of therapeutic approaches adapted to the needs of the individual patient or couple. Following his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia (MCV, now part of Virginia Commonwealth University), he served at the NIMH Clinical Research Center in Lexington, Kentucky as an officer in the United States Public Health Service. He then returned to MCV for his residency in psychiatry.

He has been in continuous practice following residency. His work has increasingly focused over the years on the central and often under-analyzed roles of expectation, resentment and loneliness in human suffering, and assisting his patients in facing those emotions in a way that overcomes the obstacles in their lives. He also focuses on helping patients realize how childhood habits and events may currently impinge on their symptoms, which he has found results in greater self- awareness of their habits as an adult. This is particularly powerful where such unresolved childhood issues have subconsciously led to anger, depression and anxiety.

Dr. Nelson additionally enjoys helping his patients break through inter-personal communication barriers. His prior work supervising psychiatric residents with their psychotherapy cases further informed him about the imperfections inherent in language assumptions by both therapist and patient, and he has dedicated a great deal of his practice to overcoming those imperfections in therapeutic ways.
His work in prior years with the Psychiatric Society of Virginia in several positions, including President, resulted in his achieving the honor of Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He enjoys continuing to gather knowledge from his peer clinicians and, most importantly, from his patients who bring a wide range of important problems to his table.