Dr. Vaiva Bugaite

About Dr. Vaiva Bugaite

Dr. Vaiva Bugaite is a consultant psychiatrist specialising in a psychotherapeutic approach. She believes that every patient is unique with their own special set of circumstances, a rich and complex inner world, and deserves to be treated with respect and empathy. She sees mutual trust and understanding between the doctor and the patient as the most important components of successful treatment. Dr. Bugaite takes time to delve deep and explore the core reasons that brought the patient to her office, always makes sure that no question is left unanswered and provides extensive recommendations on how to support and streamline recovery. She perceives the doctor and patient relationship as a team working together towards recovery and greatly appreciates honest feedback.

Dr. Bugaite started her medical career studying at Vilnius university, which is one of the oldest universities in Eastern Europe with a long tradition of teaching medicine and is considered the most prestigious university in Lithuania. During her studies she volunteered with the Lithuanian medical students association (serving as the secretary for the Vilnius chapter) supporting the progression of human rights related initiatives and giving lectures on student mental health and ways to support it in schools. She has also done multiple internships in other European teaching institutions such as Ljubljana University Medical Centre, Girona’s Dr. Josep Trueta Hospital and London’s St George’s Hospital.

After completing her Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree, she continued her specialist training in psychiatry, working not only across a wide range of mental health institutions in Lithuania, such as Republican Vilnius Psychiatric Hospital, Vilnius City Mental Health Center, Rokiškio Psychiatric Hospital, but also in Zagreb at the University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče and Dublin at St John of God Hospital. Throughout her career Dr. Bugaite has gained experience working with a great variety of psychiatric conditions, with particular emphasis on anxiety, mood and personality disorders, in different settings from acute wards to community mental health centres.

Dr. Bugaite strongly believes that just medication alone is not sufficient for most patients and that psychotherapy could provide significant benefits to almost everyone. Therefore, she completed a 4 year extensive postgraduate Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) programme at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, which covered psychotherapeutic treatment of a broad range of mental health difficulties and earned her the qualification of a psychotherapist. She has been working in her private practice seeing clients since 2022. During her practice and through contact with patients, she developed a special interest in anxiety and OCD related disorders.

In her consultations Dr. Bugaite takes on a multifaceted and flexible approach, combining CBT principles with Acceptance and Commitment (ACT), Schema Therapy and Dialectical Behavioural (DBT) techniques in order to best support her patients and their recovery.

As a psychiatrist Dr. Bugaite maintains her curiosity in the everchanging field of mental health developments and psychopharmacology, attending a broad variety of conferences and courses to further improve her knowledge and ability to help. She strives to provide the best service to her patients while maintaining a warm and approachable demeanour.