Your Custom Text Here
I offer psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis to clients who want to decrease their emotional suffering, wish to understand the underlying causes of their difficulties, and want to grow. Depending on the particular needs and preferences of individual clients, the level of therapeutic engagement can vary, from once a week short term psychotherapy focused on addressing specific life problems, to a deeper self-exploration in individual psychoanalysis. It’s been my experience in helping different individuals over many years of doing this work that as clients embark on their journey of self-exploration and begin to put into words their innermost thoughts and feelings, they feel great relief, gain new insights into themselves, and are changed by the process. As a result of psychoanalytic exploration, individuals feel freer in their inner and outer lives, create new ways of understanding important life events, and often discover new directions for their lives. This process of self-exploration, meaning making, and emotional growth takes time. Whether you choose to pursue weekly psychotherapy with me, or decide to engage in psychoanalysis, you are bound to benefit from the experience and will be enriched by it.
MY AREAS OF SPECIALTY include: life transitions, adjustment to college and graduate school, dissatisfaction with career, relationship problems, family of origin issues, loss, divorce, cultural displacement and cultural identity, inhibition in creative work (ie., writers’ block).
CLINICAL AND EDUCATIONAL TRAINING:
completed full psychoanalytic training at Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis (MIP) in adult psychoanalysis; in-depth study of contemporary developments in psychoanalytic theory and technique of treatment; regular case presentations; conducted several analyses of patients; received clinical supervision and consultation from senior analysts
26 years of clinical experience working with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families
worked in college counseling center, hospital, community mental health clinics, and private practice
MSW in clinical social work from Smith College School for Social Work
Postgraduate Fellowship in trauma recovery work with Judith Herman MD, Victims of Violence Program (VOV), Cambridge Hospital, Cambridge, MA
Postgraduate Fellowship in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis (MIP), Cambridge, MA; studied recent developments of psychoanalytic theory and technique in: ego psychology, drive theory, self-psychology, object-relations, and relational psychoanalysis; presented clinical cases
Contemporary PsychoanalyticTheory, Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, Chicago, IL; postgraduate course on main currents in contemporary psychoanalysis
PhD in Russian literature from Cornell University. In my dissertation on women's autobiography, I examined the relationship between collective trauma, language, and female self-representation
ongoing clinical education and individual consultation in my areas of specialty
regular participation in yearly creativity seminars at the Austen Riggs Center that explore the intersection of different artistic practices and clinical work
35 years of Zen Buddhist meditation practice
taught Russian literature at several American universities
lecturer in the Comparative Literature Department, UMass/Amherst; taught courses on Polish language, literature and film and Russian literature
speak English, Polish and Russian
sustained interest in psychoanalysis and the arts
16 Armory Street, Suite 3, Northampton, MA 01060, telephone: (413) 586-5681