
Shalini Varma Verified Provider
Psychiatrist
About Me
Dr. Shalini Varma is a board certified psychiatrist leading Open Life Health Psychiatry in Vernon Hills, Illinois, serving children through seniors with in-person and telehealth care. She offers physician led highly confidential treatment in a private setting designed to help you feel safe and supported from your very first visit.
Addiction Psychiatry and Dual Diagnosis Treatment
Dr. Varma specializes in treating substance use disorders, alcohol use disorder, and behavioral addictions alongside co-occurring mental health conditions. Her dual diagnosis approach addresses the full picture helping clients untangle the relationship between addiction and underlying mood, anxiety, trauma, or neurodevelopmental challenges.
Sessions combine evidence based therapy including CBT, DBT, Motivational Interviewing, and mindfulness based techniques with carefully managed psychiatric medication when appropriate.
Psychological and Neuropsychological Testing
Dr. Varma also offers comprehensive psychological and neuropsychological evaluation to clarify complex diagnoses and guide treatment planning. These assessments provide diagnostic clarity for ADHD, learning differences, and co-occurring conditions helping clients and families understand the root of symptoms and build a tailored care plan.
Getting Started with Care
Dr. Varma sees clients in person at her Vernon Hills office and via secure telehealth, with evening and weekend appointments available. She is a board-certified psychiatrist offering direct, accessible care with new patients typically seen within one week.
The practice operates out of network and accepts self-pay via cash, credit card, and HSA.
Orientation & Focus
Ages Treated
Modalities
Languages Spoken
Ethnicity
Specialties
- Addiction
- ADHD
- Adoption
- Alzheimer's
- Anger Management
- Antisocial Personality
- Anxiety
- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
- Behavioral Issues
- Bipolar Disorder
- Borderline Personality (BPD)
- Career Counseling
- Child
- Chronic Illness or Pain
- Codependency
- Computer & Internet Addiction
- Coping Skills
- Depression
- Developmental Disorders
- Dissociative Disorders (DID)
- Divorce
- Domestic Abuse
- Dual Diagnosis
- Eating Disorders
- Emotional Disturbance
- Family Conflict
- Gambling
- Grief
- Hoarding
- Infertility
- Infidelity
- Learning Disabilities
- Life Coaching
- Life Transitions
- Marital and Premarital
- Medication Management
- Men's Issues
- Narcissistic Personality (NPD)
- Obesity
- Obsessive Compulsive (OCD)
- Oppositional Defiance (ODD)
- Other
- Parenting
- Peer Relationships
- Pregnancy and Postpartum
- Psychosis
- Racial Identity
- Relationship Issues
- School Issues
- Self Esteem
- Self Harm
- Seniors
- Sex Addiction
- Sexual Abuse
- Sexual Health
- Sleep and Insomnia
- Spirituality
- Sports Performance
- Stress
- Substance Abuse
- Substance Use
- Suicidal Ideation
- Testing and Evaluation
- Transgender
- Trauma and PTSD
- Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
- Weight Loss
- Women's Issues
Treatment Options
- Coaching
- Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
- Couples Counseling
- Dialectical Behavior (DBT)
- Family Therapy
- Feminist
- Integrative
- Interpersonal
- Mindfulness-Based (MBCT)
- Motivational Interviewing (MI)
- Multicultural
- Person-Centered
- Positive Psychology
- Psychological Assessment