Meet Dr. Zipperman
Specializing in Integrative Psychiatry
Dr. Zipperman is a board-certified psychiatrist. Her training and expertise include both medication management and psychotherapy techniques to treat a wide range of psychiatric conditions, some of which include anxiety/depression/bipolar disorder/ADHD/panic disorder, cognitive processing therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), motivational interviewing, and psychodynamic therapy. She has experience caring for cancer patients, veterans, and many others who want to achieve total wellness by balancing the psychological and physical effects of illness or trauma.
Dr. Zipperman’s practice style is one of collaboration with her patients and other providers in the treatment team.
“I believe that patients often know what treatments do or do not work for them; of most importance is listening to a patient’s preferences and adhering to them whenever possible.”
Dr. Zipperman believes in patient-centered care, which means that the patient can and should make the decisions. She provides professional expertise to 1) educate patients about their diagnosis and treatment plan options; 2) empower patients to adopt a healthy lifestyle through incremental change; and 3) coordinate referrals to complementary practitioners and specialists when appropriate.
Dr. Zipperman’s Background
Dr. Zipperman is a Northwest native raised in southern Oregon, as well as an alumni of Oregon State University, where she graduated with honors and earned a bachelor's degree in toxicology with a minor concentration in chemistry. At one point she thought she would be a veterinarian, so she studied animal science and earned a master’s degree in agriculture from California State University in Pomona. Ultimately, Dr. Zipperman chose medicine because she enjoyed learning about people and hearing their stories.
Dr. Zipperman received her medical training from Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California, a program that strongly emphasized the importance of treating the mind and body together; also, the role of healthy living, stress management, and preventative care as fundamentals of medical treatments to achieve overall wellness.
Dr. Zipperman has extensive experience conducting research, including two years at Arkansas Children’s Hospital Nutrition Center – one of only six Human Nutrition Research Centers (HNRC) in the nation. She explored the role of dietary fats on alcohol-related liver damage and the impact of maternal nutritional status on fetal alcohol syndrome. Other topics included predicting outcomes of traumatic brain injury with neuroimaging MRI findings. Dr. Zipperman also did research at Loma Linda University and authored two thesis publications during her undergraduate and graduate career. Her work was published in the Journal of Nutrition and Journal of Neurotrauma.
After graduating from medical school in 2007, Dr. Zipperman went on to pursue advanced medical training at the University of Southern California and University of Hawaii. She completed her psychiatric residency at the University of Washington, a program that equally underscored both psychopharmacology and psychotherapy. During her residency, Dr. Zipperman did many of her rotations at the Veteran’s Hospital of Puget Sound caring for veterans with traumatic military experiences, addictions, and a spectrum of severity of psychiatric illness from the worried well and bipolar illness to the most disabling of psychotic disorders.
Prior to entering private practice, Dr. Zipperman was employed as an attending psychiatrist at Overlake Hospital in Bellevue, WA within the outpatient clinic. She also served on the Overlake Cancer Committee as the primary psychiatrist treating cancer patients at Overlake, a role she holds dear to her heart. Dr. Zipperman transitioned into private practice in order to tailor care for her patients with an emphasis on mind-body wellness and integrative psychiatry.
In her free time, Dr. Zipperman is a big animal lover. She enjoys taking her French mastiff to the dog park. She takes care to practice what she preaches in the way of achieving life-work balance. She enjoys the NW outdoors with hiking, mountain biking, and rock climbing. She ran in two marathons and is a hot yoga enthusiast.
Board-Certified Psychiatrist in Seattle, WA
“Profoundly positive change happens when patients sense they are understood, that their doctor empathizes and genuinely cares for them in a compassionate way, and when their doctor partners with them to achieve BALANCED LIVING."
