Our Orange County Clinic
Dedicated to healing lives through compassionate, evidence-based care
A Public Health Response, Twenty-One Years Old
CPMH Rehab opened in October 2005 as part of the Orange County Department of Public Health response to the prescription opioid crisis that swept Southern California in the early 2000s. The original clinical leadership came from three local hospital systems — UCI Health, St. Joseph Hospital, and Hoag — combined with county public health officials and three founding-year families who had buried adult children to oxycodone overdoses between 2002 and 2004.
The original charter committed CPMH to three things that still define us: addiction medicine grounded in current neuroscience, not 1980s recovery folklore; admissions that do not depend on a family's ability to pay cash up front; and a family-restoration framework that pulls spouses, parents, and adult children into the treatment plan from the first phone call.
Twenty-one years and 11,300+ alumni later, the original charter still holds. Two of the founding-year families serve on our community advisory board. Our clinical advisory panel includes attendings from UCI Health and St. Joseph who rotate to CPMH for quarterly grand rounds. The protocols continue to be updated annually against the latest addiction medicine literature.
Family-Restoration Mission
CPMH exists to restore families fractured by addiction. The resident in front of us is rarely the only person affected, and recovery that ignores the household has worse one-year outcomes in our data and in the broader literature. Our family-restoration framework folds spouses, parents, and adult children into care from the first call — not the third week of residential.
Treatment Philosophy
Three commitments shape every treatment plan. Creative-expression healing: art therapy, music studio, and expressive writing are not enrichment add-ons — they are clinical modalities that reach residents whose talk-therapy defenses are decades old. Motivational enhancement: we do not argue with ambivalence; we work alongside it. Neuroscience-based care: residents see the data on their own sleep, mood, cravings, and brain function, because understanding what is actually happening biologically transforms recovery from willpower into informed self-management.
Our Team
Dr. Nadia Ortiz-Vela, MD, DFASAM
Medical Director
Board-certified in addiction medicine and internal medicine, Dr. Ortiz-Vela trained at UCI Health and served as a Hoag Hospital ED attending before joining CPMH in 2008. She oversees medical detox protocols, medication-assisted treatment, and the quarterly grand rounds that connect our clinical team to UCI's addiction medicine fellowship program.
Wendell Tashjian, LCSW, CADC II
Executive Director
A licensed clinical social worker and certified addiction counselor with twenty-eight years in Orange County community health, Wendell was one of the original 2005 founding-year clinicians. He leads day-to-day operations, the alumni mentorship program, and the family-restoration intensive that meets every Saturday at our Tustin Street campus.
Dr. Imogen Caraway, PsyD
Clinical Director
A clinical psychologist trained at Loma Linda University and the VA Long Beach Healthcare System, Dr. Caraway built CPMH's neurofeedback program and supervises the trauma-focused CBT curriculum. Her published work on motivational enhancement therapy for treatment-resistant residents directly shapes our long-relapse-finally-worked pathway.
Dr. Felipe Saavedra, MD
Director of Addiction Medicine
Fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine and former county public health officer for Orange County, Dr. Saavedra leads the medical team responsible for CPMH's withdrawal protocols. He chairs the Orange County addiction medicine consortium that meets quarterly with St. Joseph, UCI, and Hoag.
Our Facility
Amenities
- Yoga Studio & Outdoor Yoga Deck
- Outdoor Fire Pit & Family Picnic Grounds
- Equine Therapy Barn
- Animal-Assisted Therapy Area
- Acupuncture Suite
- Library & Computer Lab
- Basketball Court
- Private & Semi-Private Rooms
Tour the Tustin Street Campus
Campus tours run weekday afternoons by appointment. A counselor walks you through the admission process — no commitment, no sales pitch.