About Us

St. Luke’s Behavioral Health Clinic is a Christian psychiatric outpatient facility that was founded in 2011 and is based in Belleville, New Jersey. We provide outpatient psychiatric care and mental health counseling to patients suffering from mood disorders, personality disorders, anxiety disorders, addiction, psychosis, and ADHD/ADD. We offer our services to the community free of charge.

St. Luke’s founder and medical director is Father Luke Istafanous, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist and priest of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Father Istafanous uses the most modern mental health modalities currently available in pharmacology and psychotherapy. But because he is a priest of the Church, he recognized that there was a need to address an individual’s spiritual life by incorporating Christian counseling. His goal is to bring a patient into health and balance by addressing their physical and emotional needs--through psychiatry and psychotherapy--as well as their need for a relationship with God.

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St. Luke’s Behavioral Health Clinic provides a holistic treatment program that is meant to address a patient’s biological, psychological, social, and spiritual needs. We are especially effective in treating patients who are lacking full insight into their mental health struggle as well as those who may be suffering due to stigma, cultural barriers, language barriers, and financial hardship.

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St Luke’s assessment, diagnostic, and intensive behavioral health treatment services are delivered by Father Istafanous and two psychotherapists (one has a Ph.D. and the other a Master’s degree) who are trained to uncover, identify and work through past traumas, wounds, losses and struggles. St Luke’s clinic is also a source of referral to a wide range of mental health professionals in the area that specialize in areas that are beyond the capacity of its own.