Daniel Barton, M.D.

Daniel Barton, M.D., is a Harvard trained child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist based in Nashville, Tennessee. Throughout his career, he has worked in emergency, inpatient, residential, and private practice settings with people from many different backgrounds and life circumstances. His experience has included working with runaway youth in New Orleans, professional athletes, musicians, executives, parents, adolescents, and adults. This breadth of experience has shaped an approach that is clinically grounded, highly individualized, and attentive to the full complexity of each person’s life.

The primary focus of Dr. Barton’s private practice is general psychiatry and supportive psychotherapy. He works with individuals experiencing depression, anxiety, relationship concerns, questions of identity and purpose, and significant personal or professional transitions.

Psychotherapy is central to his approach. Rather than relying on one fixed therapy model, Dr. Barton draws from a variety of therapeutic traditions and adapts his work to each person’s needs, personality, and goals. Because he is both a physician and a psychotherapist, Dr. Barton can incorporate medication when necessary while keeping psychotherapy and the broader context of a person’s life at the center of treatment.

Dr. Barton is the founder and director of the Nashville Ketamine Center, the first outpatient ketamine clinic in the Southeast and one of the first ten ketamine clinics in the United States. He also serves as Medical Director of Integrative Life Center, a residential and outpatient program specializing in mental health, trauma, addiction, and recovery.

A longtime advocate for integrative and psychedelic assisted therapies, Dr. Barton teaches advanced psychedelic psychotherapy through Polaris Insight Center. He has spoken regionally, nationally, and internationally about ketamine, psychedelic therapy, and the creation of safe, individualized environments for healing.

I am a Nashville native who returned home after living in New Orleans and leaving in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. When I am not working, I am usually happiest spending time with my family, riding a bike (road or mountain), seeing live music, or taking the occasional trip tubing down the Harpeth.

Weather permitting, I occasionally ride a Vespa to the office. I also sometimes bring my dog Liam with me, though not on the Vespa. Patients have gently but appropriately mocked me for taking a long time to hang art on the walls and for preferring not to wear shoes in my office. For the record, I do always wear socks.

I keep things professional, but I also like my office to feel comfortable, human, and a little less formal than the average psychiatric office. Come and sit for a while.