For Professionals

Evidence-based training, collaborative patient care, and professional development for practitioners at the gut-brain-pain intersection.

Three ways to work together

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Collaborative Patient Care

Work together to support your patients with complex presentations. Clinical consultation and co-management for cases requiring integrated expertise.

Ideal for:

  • Physicians needing nutritional, psychological, or behavioral support
  • Dietitians with IBS patients
  • Therapists with somatic cases
  • Coaches managing complexity
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Online Training Programs

Complete practice system for treating complex functional conditions. Self-paced certification with clinical platform, protocols, and practitioner community.

Includes:

  • 8-module training (40+ hours)
  • Clinical platform with tools
  • Practitioner directory listing
  • Community access
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Speaking & Live Training

In-person courses, live online workshops, conference presentations, and organizational training on integrated approaches to functional conditions.

Available formats:

  • In-person workshops
  • Live online courses
  • Conference presentations
  • Organizational training
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What sets The Care Layer approach apart

Coaching-Based Clinical Model

The Care Layer uses a health coaching framework rather than traditional medical appointments. 

Why this complements your work

For busy clinicians: I provide the time-intensive behavioral support your patients need but you can't deliver in standard appointment structures.

For specialists: I address the lifestyle, psychological, and nervous system components while you handle the medical/nutritional/therapeutic interventions within your scope.

For solo practitioners: I offer the multidisciplinary perspective without requiring you to become expert in areas outside your training.
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Longer appointments

  • 60-90 minute sessions (not 15-minute medical visits)
  • Time to actually address behavior change, nervous system regulation, and complex presentations
  • Space for patients to process and integrate

Longer-term support

  • Weeks to months of consistent work, not one-off consultations
  • Behavioral change takes time - protocols are implemented gradually
  • Regular check-ins and protocol adjustments as needed

Behavior change focus

  • Not just diagnosis and prescription
  • Implementation support for lifestyle interventions
  • Skill-building for self-management
  • Addressing barriers to adherence

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Multidisciplinary expertise in one professional

Rather than referring to multiple specialists, your patients work with one provider who integrates:
  • Pain psychology and neuroscience
  • Gut-brain axis mechanisms
  • Nervous system regulation
  • Lifestyle Medicine
  • Health behavior change
This creates coherent treatment plans instead of fragmented care from multiple disconnected providers.
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Scientific rigor meets individualized care

This level of individualization takes time - which is why the coaching model is essential.
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Research-trained approach

With a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and MS in Psychological Medicine, I approach each case as a scientific investigation:
  • Deep dive into your patient's unique presentation
  • Literature review of current evidence specific to their condition cluster
  • Protocol development based on mechanisms, not just symptoms
  • Hypothesis-testing and adjustment based on response

No cookie-cutter protocols

Complex functional conditions don't respond to one-size-fits-all approaches. Each patient receives:
  • Comprehensive assessment across all relevant systems
  • Customized protocols addressing their specific presentation
  • Evidence-based interventions tailored to their context
  • Iterative refinement based on what's working

Case study methodology

Your patient's case becomes a careful study:
  • What mechanisms are driving their symptoms?
  • Why haven't previous interventions worked?
  • What's the optimal sequence of interventions?
  • How do we measure meaningful progress?

Together we can do more

Complex functional conditions don't respect disciplinary boundaries. Research shows that fragmented care from multiple disconnected specialists often leaves patients managing conflicting advice, duplicated assessments, and gaps in treatment continuity. Truly integrated care requires practitioners who understand how to work across systems, not just within them.

Why Integrative Care Is Essential

The lifestyle psychiatry framework emphasizes that conditions at the gut-brain-pain intersection involve multiple interconnected mechanisms—autonomic nervous system dysregulation, inflammatory pathways, HPA axis dysfunction, gut-brain signaling, and pain modulation systems. No single discipline addresses all these pathways effectively.

When practitioners collaborate—sharing insights, coordinating protocols, and maintaining aligned treatment goals—patients receive coherent care rather than fragmented interventions that may work against each other. This is particularly critical for people experiencing overlapping conditions like IBS with chronic pain, or burnout with metabolic dysfunction, where symptoms span multiple body systems.

Building Bridges Between Disciplines

This interdisciplinary foundation shapes how The Care Layer supports practitioners—whether through training that builds cross-system competencies, collaborative patient care that complements your work, or organizational development that strengthens team-based approaches.

Together, we can deliver the integrated care these complex conditions require.

"As founder of the Singaporean Society of Lifestyle Medicine, I've worked to bridge medical specialties, allied health professions, and evidence-based complementary approaches. This experience showed me that effective collaboration requires mutual respect for scope of practice, shared evidence-based language, and coordinated care planning."

Dr. Elaine Barretto

PhD, DipIBLM, NBC-HWC, CEO of The Care Layer

Join the Growing Movement in Lifestyle Psychiatry

The evidence is clear. The guidelines are established. The patients are asking for it. The question is: will you be part of the solution?

of patients have comorbidities
mental + physical overlapping conditions

of patients prefer
non-pharmacological approaches when available
2025
WHO Guidance:
Lifestyle Psychiatry now essential, not optional