Not Just a Quick Fix: Tamara Cafaro, PMHNP

At Handel Behavioral Health, we believe mental health care works best when treatment is holistic, collaborative, and cohesive. That’s why we’re excited to welcome our new Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Tamara Cafaro, to our team.

As a PMHNP, Tamara works collaboratively with your care team at HBH to get diagnostic assessments, prescriptions, medication management, and counseling all in one place.

Tamara takes her role in your care seriously, informed by years of psychiatric experience, extensive psychotherapy training, and a deeply holistic understanding of healing. Her comprehensive approach combines evidence-based care with curiosity, openness, and respect for each client’s individual experience.

Curiosity Creates the Path

Tamara’s journey into mental health care began with a passion for understanding human connection, behavior, identity, and spirituality.

She first studied philosophy at Drew University after beginning her education at the University of Colorado Boulder and spending time studying in Cork, Ireland.

After graduating, she spent some time getting to know herself. Tamara began exploring spirituality and yoga, and spent six months in India immersed in spiritual study and practice.

Knowing she wanted to use her healing powers for good, she returned to school to pursue nursing and fell into the psychiatric field.

“It naturally falls into psychiatry,” Tamara reflected, noting the overlapping role of mindfulness, breathing, and somatics in her education. “There was a personal interest and kind of a karmic connection to mental health,” she shared.

Tamara earned both her nursing degree and master’s degree through Rutgers University and spent many years working as a psychiatric nurse before becoming a prescriber.

Along the way, she also worked in an HIV/AIDS clinic and outpatient crisis services; these experiences deepened her understanding of how emotional, physical, and social factors intersect in healthcare.

Medication as a Tool

Tamara emphasizes that medication is not a “quick fix” or erases difficult experiences.

“This is not the solution,” she said. “It’s a way to get you to a place where you can work in psychotherapy differently.”

Instead, she views it as a tool that can help clients become more regulated and open enough to engage more meaningfully in therapy and daily life. Medication can help quiet the internal feedback enough for clients to process emotions, approach situations differently, and develop new perspectives.

Although Tamara is often hired specifically for medication management, her approach incorporates psychotherapy.  Her experiential training in psychodrama and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy helps her get a fuller picture of what a client may be going through.

Your Body, Your Choice in Medication Management

Clients meeting with Tamara can expect a collaborative, nonjudgmental environment where they remain fully involved in their treatment decisions.

“I don’t do anything a client isn’t ready or willing to do,” she said. “The client has the reins.”

Tamara describes her approach to prescribing as conservative, often believing that “less is better.” Rather than endlessly increasing medications, she focuses on finding what is truly effective and sustainable for each person while remaining attentive to both emotional and physiological wellbeing.

She believes success is defined by the client: “If it’s effective for them, then it’s effective.”

However, she emphasizes the importance of ongoing check-ins and stability. Even when clients are doing well, she prefers to maintain regular follow-up appointments because both life and the body are constantly changing.

Getting The Whole Picture

Tamara’s holistic approach leverages not only her clinical training but her varied life experiences, personal growth work, and willingness to meet people without judgment.

Her home environment closely reflects the values she brings into her clinical work. Tamara lives within an intentional community centered around contact improv, somatic arts, mindfulness, and organic farming.

“Community and relationship are huge,” she said, in relation to mental health. “Connection matters.”

This experience, she says, deepened her appreciation of connecting with one’s body and nature, and reinforces her belief that healing cannot happen solely in the mind.

“We leave out a lot in the Western model of psychotherapy,” she explained. “The body holds a lot.”

Everyone Has a Story

Tamara understands the impact of a story, not just in the books we read but in the stories we share with the world, and the ones shared with us.

Tamara recommended The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo by Kent Nerburn, a book that challenged and expanded her views on psychosis and mental health through different cultural perspectives.

She also shared her love for Big Fish, directed by Tim Burton, describing it as a profound story about understanding people through the narratives they create around their lives, and how their stories affect our own.

Looking for a Psychiatric Prescriber in Massachusetts?

Whether her role is in prescribing, medication management, diagnosis of mental health conditions, or simply helping a client feel heard for the first time, Tamara’s work begins from the belief that every person deserves to be approached with curiosity, dignity, and compassion.

We’re thrilled to welcome Tamara to the HBH team and look forward to the warmth, insight, and holistic care she brings to clients across Massachusetts.

Tamara Cafaro, PMHNP is available for telehealth online or in-person from our Amherst, Massachusetts office.

To start working with a psychiatric prescriber today, contact us at (413) 343-4357 or request an appointment online.

 

Further Reading:

Psychiatric Treatment in Massachusetts

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