Dr. Ranjan Patel 1838 El Camino Real, Burlingame, CA 94010

"I almost feel like giving her one star for her ridiculously high fee, not at all competitive for the market. BUT she pretty much saved our relationship, I mean I messed up some and my wife and I had major issues, which finally we went to Dr. Patel. One of us also sees a psychiatrist and Dr. Patel called him to make sure we were all on the same page. The proof is in the pudding, because we kept going back every week, the progress we were making, I mean I never thought I’d say this, but I wish we had gone to see her years ago. I’m not a therapy kind of guy and not huge on talking about “feelings,” but Dr. Patel somehow managed to coax a curmudgeon into being a better husband. So I guess even though I was grumbling about my hard earned money spent, the every day quality of our life with each other is night and day better."

"My husband and I saw Dr. Patel for a couple of months, did it virtually due to the pandemic, and though I had some doubts about how it would be with video, we made some positive changes with each other. The plus: she's very balanced and gave us a lot of space to express our viewpoints. But on the negative side, she gives a lot of assignments to practice, which at the time felt overwhelming, but looking back, it might've been what made us progress faster than we otherwise would've."

"This review is long overdue, because I saw Dr. Patel years ago, before I moved to WA., and she helped me out with problems I was having with my boyfriend and also with some career choices I was struggling with. When I moved out of state, she said she couldn't see me because of some sort of ethics or law issue where she's not licensed outside of CA. Which I don't get at all, I was miffed about that, but I guess it's not her fault if that's the law. I saw another therapist in WA, but we never really clicked. Fast forward four years, and now I'm back in CA to help my parents with their business. Though her fees have gone up, I figured it was worth going back to her, because I'm very stressed trying to juggle my husband, new baby, health problems, and my old anxiety issues. I felt I needed ways to cope, which once again, she's helping in a big way. We're doing many of the same stuff like breathing exercises, making flashcards, and examining my thoughts. But this time, it's more structured and we're practicing more. I also think because I'm older, I'm more open and giving her more to work with, so we're also talking about stuff I used to shut down about. I've seen several therapists, but what I really appreciate about her is what you see is what you get with her. She doesn't hide behind a wall, so it's easy to trust her, she's easy for me to open up to."

"My Dr referred me to her before I moved out to Sac, though it took me a while to get up the nerve to call. I was battling some stuff, which I won't go into detail here, but I just couldn't get a grip on it, even though I I was drowning in self-help books, lol. The therapy taught me perspective, and even if I was hard on myself, she was supportive and gave me other ways of looking at myself. I appreciated that she was really focused and attentive to me and somehow knew just the right questions to ask to help me dig deeper and. It took time for me to get used to her style, more interactive than I was used to with my other therapist. I was in therapy before and wasn't used to getting homework for the week, and even though I didn't always do what she asked, it turned out pretty well, because after a while I started telling her stuff I wanted to do for the week. She explained my cycle, drew it on paper, and we practiced ways to calm me down in the sessions. This is weird to say, but in the beginning, because I was struggling so much, I didn't like her attitude, which was very positive and encouraging. Because I was feeling so down, I couldn't relate to her being so optimistic about me. But after a while, I started feeling better, and this is one of the best things I ended up liking about her, that she's very easy to talk to and I could count on her to understand where I was coming from. I missed a lot of sessions, when I couldn't drive to her office because my work schedule was too hectic, so we did remote appointments, and though I wasn't sure they'd work, they helped me stay on track."

"When my husband and I decided that it would be good to get back into couples therapy, my husband's colleague referred us to Dr. Patel. We checked out her reviews on Yelp. In the initial phone inquiry, she spent a decent amount of time listening to us, asking questions, (more time than I was expecting). Though we hadn't yet started therapy, after we hung up, I felt more hopeful than I had in a year. Our takeaway: She taught us how to talk to each other better, listen and get more in touch with what we were feeling, instead of the usual sniping at each other. We appreciated that she took the time to understand each of us and our childhoods, and went out of her way to tell us that if either of us felt like she was siding with one over the other, that we should speak up and give her feedback. My husband actually told her that he thought she was more on my side and he got a bit snippy. But we felt more trusting of her when she didn't get defensive and asked us for more details, including how she could make it better for us. Weirdly, I learned from that exchange she had with my husband, that maybe I could also not get defensive when he talks to me. Also, our last couples therapist asked us to read a "healthy relationship" book, which we hated because my husband doesn't like to read and it kind of felt like the therapist was passing the buck and wanted us to fix ourselves, which frustrated the hell out of us because after all, why were we paying him? We spent a few months going in every week and came away so much better, so now when we argue it feels to both of us that we come out of it better and closer than before our argument. I wouldn't say that it's a negative thing per se, but her style took some getting used to, because she's very direct, which was unnerving, but she's also informally friendly and caring, so my husband and I saw that she came from a good place of wanting what was best for us, so we began to see her words in that spirit, so all was cool."