Why waste any more time? Life is precious.

I am a licensed clinical psychologist with over 25 years of clinical experience specializing in the rapid resolution of psychological symptoms. Often referred to as one of the best psychologists in Los Angeles, if you are looking for excellence and discretion, you have come to the right place.

In addition to my private practice, I hold an appointment as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and have been rated as one of UCLA's best clinical professors.

Current Professional Work 

Clinical Practice

I maintain a private practice in Los Angeles, California (with offices near UCLA and Beverly Hills) where I treat individuals and couples via weekly or monthly psychotherapy sessions. I also provide in-office psychotherapy for out-of-town patients. In these cases, the entire course of treatment is generally conducted in three-to-four-hour sessions which are customized and occur on a semi-regular basis

My work with patients is active and focused; it is based on full collaboration. My goals are to remove psychiatric symptoms and to help people regain or achieve their highest level of functioning as quickly as possible.

 Specializations, Advanced Degrees, Certificates, and Areas of Focus

I have trained in many different therapeutic modalities which I combine when curating healing or consulting plans for each individual client. Among my scholarly pursuits, I have studied and obtained advanced training in Attachment-Based Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy, Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, Attachment Therapy, EMDR, Emotionally Focused Therapy, EFT Couples Therapy, Gottman Couples Therapy, Grief Recovery (w/ GRI certification), Interpersonal Neurobiology, ISTDP, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and Sex Therapy.

My work with clients often focuses on removing obstacles to the buried emotions and experiences or memories that are driving the current or chronic symptoms and issues. The surface issues rarely tell us the whole story about the origin or source of suffering or stuckness. Just as anxiety can operate as a “signal” or symptom of a problem which serves to block access to the complex emotions driving it, I guide clients to the unconscious engine of their symptoms. We address and reduce surface anxiety so we can get beyond it and other presenting symptoms, issues, or blockages to access the source, facilitate healing, and achieve fulfillment of each client’s potential (freeing the mind of being held captive by suffering or paralysis and taking active steps to prevent recurrence).

Teaching

Based on my love of teaching, I concentrate on supervising, lecturing, and conducting clinical training groups for mental health professionals, in the US and abroad, who wish to achieve more success with patients or learn Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP). In addition, I teach a 1-2 year course on ISTDP and Accelerated Psychotherapy for UCLA psychiatry residents and faculty at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.

My passion for teaching is irrepressible and resulted in my being honored with the Distinguished Teaching Award by the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences for my “Outstanding Clinical Faculty Teaching” at the David Geffen School of Medicine.

Educational and Professional Training

I obtained my undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley where I was a University Merit Scholar and a recipient of the Presidential Undergraduate Fellowship. I subsequently earned a Master’s degree and Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and Organizational Behavior from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). My post-degree professional training includes over 25 years of clinical experience.

I have specialized in Attachment-Based ISTDP and empirically validated, solution-focused therapies for over twenty-five years. I have pursued advanced training in many accelerated models of attachment-based individual, couples and sex psychotherapy, grief recovery, executive coaching, organizational behavior, interpersonal neurobiology, trauma treatment, emotion regulation, anger management, and mindful parenting. I have studied or taught alongside talented scholars, clinicians, and executive coaches including: Allan Abbass, Walter Brackelmanns, Andrew Christensen, Samuel Culbert, Habib Davanloo, Michele Weiner-Davis, Diana Fosha, Jon Frederickson, Joshua Golden, John Gottman, Josette ten Have-de Labije, Sue Johnson, Mary Main, Robert Neborsky, Pat Ogden, Allan Schore, Daniel J. Siegel, Marion Solomon, Stan Tatkin, and Bob Tannenbaum.

Additionally, I remain a scholar of Human Sexuality and the ways in which people can use sex or work or other activities to avoid intimacy. I taught and trained at UC Berkeley’s and UCLA’s Human Sexuality Programs. At UCLA, I worked with Drs. Joe & Peggy Golden and Dr. Lee Blackwell in the Human Sexuality Program at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute to help couples having difficulty sustaining emotionally and sexually intimate relationships. Specifically, I provided relationship therapy and sex therapy to couples who sought out our help to resolve their relationship problems which were frequently exacerbated by sexual acting out (one or both partners having affairs, abusing pornography, or avoiding sexual engagement). In addition to treating sexual dysfunction, I became skilled in helping individuals and couples notice and eliminate relationship-destructive behaviors, resolve relationship trauma, take ownership of their authentic feelings and desires, however controversial, and increase the overall quality of their most intimate and important relationships.

After completing my doctoral dissertation on the ways in which prescribed gender roles contribute to body loathing, and the way body loathing interferes with self-attachment and healthy romantic love, I co-founded a multidisciplinary institute devoted to the study and treatment of eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder. In my capacity as clinical director, I used my extensive background in clinical psychology and affect regulation to help clients recover from binge eating disorders, body dysmorphia, exercise bulimia, and anorexia nervosa. The clinic is no longer in operation, but the work forever impacted the depth of my understanding of, and my clinical approach to, body image disturbances, self-loathing, and food and eating-related obsessions and compulsions.

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