About Us
Dr. Jesse Morton Hilsen, MD
Dr Jesse Morton Hilsen, MD practices integrative psychiatry, focusing on the use of positive lifestyle change to assist clients in overcoming serious health challenges. Through the use of both individual and group counseling, Dr Hilsen provides a therapeutic environment that encourages each client to explore and integrate new habits that can greatly enhance the effectiveness of a variety of medical therapies. Concepts of nutrition, exercise, and stress management, that are at least vaguely familiar to most people, are brought into each individual’s personal understanding and daily routine through Dr Hilsen’s unique approach, fostering success far beyond what medication, surgery, and “willpower” alone have to offer.
Dr Hilsen received his MD degree from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Buffalo, NY, and completed his psychiatry residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, NY. Over the course of his career he has treated children, adolescents, and adults, including military personnel at several US military bases where he specialized in treating PTSD. He has studied and worked with alternative therapies such as nutritional-behavioral therapy and acupuncture, and was a founding member of the American Academy of Acupuncture.
Contact: jmh@albanywellnessproject.com
Chaya Tal, RN
Chaya Tal, RN, has been passionate about the workings of the natural world since childhood. After foregoing a premed college degree to explore spirituality, she then studied and practiced midwifery for many years, assisting women to experience the joy and transformative power of giving birth. She received her RN degree from the Rivka Ziv School of Nursing in Safed, Israel. Chaya worked in Neonatal Intensive Care in Haifa, Israel, and then returned to the U.S. where she spent several years as a wellness counselor at the New Age Health Spa in Neversink, NY, and in hospital settings in cardiology and geriatrics in Albany, NY.
Frustrated with the medical system’s focus on medication and surgery while ignoring the importance of healthy lifestyle habits, she took a long break from the medical field, to build a property management business, all the while continuing to study and put into practice the principles of nutrition, exercise, and mental balance. A health crisis propelled her back into the wellness field – click here to read her recent short presentation to the Cornell Wellness Counseling reunion on the “birth” of the Albany Wellness Project.
Contact: chaya@albanywellnessproject.com