Dr Nangia currently serves as Clinical Faculty for the Yale School of Medicine (pending) where he is training tomorrow’s healthcare providers on the importance of incorporating wellness into their own lives, with the hopes that Western healers will continue to be more integrative into their approach and wellness-focused, especially those fields of medicine involved in prevention or treating chronic illness.
Dr. Nangia began his medical journey the traditional route, where he graduated with honors with dual degrees in Molecular & Cellular Biology-Genetics and Integrative Biology at the University of California at Berkeley. He later received a Masters Degree in Public Health and a Masters in Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University, where he was ranked number one in his class. He attended medical school at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, where he was on the Dean’s List and started his medicine career at the Los Angeles County General Hospital/USC Medical Center in the dual residency program of Internal Medicine & Pediatrics. Due to seeing the impact of human behavior and psychology on chronic health conditions, he decided to switch fields into Psychiatry.
Dr Nangia was introduced to psychotherapy by former president of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Marcia Goin, who authored an APA recommended book on Psychoanalysis. He was also trained in medication management by a well-known pioneer in bio-psychiatry, Dr. George Simpson, developer of the Simson Angus Scale and participant in the famous CATIE medication trial, which Dr Nangia also was involved in through the LA County Psychiatric Emergency Room.
Dr. Nangia later served as Chief Resident in Psychiatry at LA County General Hospital/USC and Chair of the LA County Psychiatric Emergency Room Off-Hours Program. After graduating, he then began a fellowship at UC San Francisco School of Medicine in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, but left early due to this program being didactic focused and he went to study directly under the legendary psychotherapy instructor David Burns at Stanford, one of the original developers of cognitive, behavioral, motivational, and acceptance therapies and author of the renowned best-seller, “The Feeling Good Handbook”. This work transformed Dr Nangia’s own life and showed him the tremendous impact of out-of-program study with mentors and peers. While at Stanford, he found another mentor, Dr James Lake, one of the pioneers of Integrative Psychiatry.
Dr Nangia later joined Stanford’s Adjunct Clinical Faculty under the Department of Behavioral Medicine and taught therapists and psychiatry residents psychotherapy. He later served as Medical Director for Behavioral Health & Chemical Dependency Outpatient Services at Good Samaritan Hospital, in San Jose.
Dr Nangia has been supporting Santa Clara County’s largest private nonprofit mental health organization, Momentum for Mental Health, which primarily serves the Medi-Cal/Medicaid population. He worked as a psychiatrist in their wrap-around program, serving those with the most severe symptoms who are at risk for incarceration, repeat hospitalizations, or homelessness. Over the years, he was also an active Board Member for Momentum, and has held fundraisers for this organization for three years, raising nearly $50,000. As a psychiatrist, Dr. Nangia received Momentum’s Community Service Award for his hands-on approach and care, including going to patients’ homes when they were too ill to make it to the clinic.
Dr Nangia is a long-time mindfulness practitioner and was trained to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction by Bob Stahl, Jon Kabat Zinn, and Saki Santorelli over 10 years ago. He currently leads guided meditations for his staff daily before starting the work day.
His focus over the last few years has been studying wellness and optimal performance, believing the deductive medical model of “getting rid of disease” is outdated when it comes to prevention and chronic illness, while focusing on optimal physical, mental, and social well-being is the way for all health practitioners. He teaches students to live with “Wellness first”, and “Be over Do”, to put their energies into being who they need to be rather than doing what they need to do.
He is a single father of three children and enjoys skateboarding, singing, and playing basketball. He is a member of Menlo Church in Mt View and is exploring the integration of spiritual practice (regardless of religion or atheist) into treatment.
Manuj Nangia, M.D.,M.P.H.
Addiction Medicine - Behavioral Health - Wellness
San Jose Integrative Wellness Center
San Jose Integrative Wellness Center
2516 Samaritan Drive, Suite G
