Group Offerings

I offer two groups, one in Berkeley and one in San Francisco, both in the morning. Both groups are integrative in focus, drawing from a wide range of theories and modalities, with a strong emphasis on depth, relational and psychodynamic approaches to psychotherapy.

Shame, perfectionism and competition often emerge within the supervisory process and can lead to doubt and fears of exposure, especially in groups. As a group facilitator and supervisor, I prioritize creating a group ambiance and culture that welcomes and respects each member's experience, needs and strengths as a clinician. I will also support your ongoing maturation as a psychotherapist, including in developing your professional identity.

The first 30 minutes of each of our supervision meetings will be reserved for sharing. The focus of this time will be defined each week as we discuss what is most needed either by individual members of the group as a whole. This half-hour can be used to discuss clinical themes, engage in short consultations or for personal sharing related to the group’s process, including the past week’s meeting or discussion. It may also be used for a more traditional “check-in."

As a participant, I will encourage you to discuss your experience of the group and as a clinician. I hope these discussions will help encourage a precedent of sharing among us as well as facilitate discussion about the ways we relate to one another and support one another as therapists and co-learners.

As the group’s facilitator, I will support and guide the group and its process and offer supervision to complement what emerges through the group’s explorations and process.

Group Structure

We will meet weekly for 2 hours.
Each meeting will include sharing, presentations, briefer case consultations and discussions of topics of interest related to either practice development and marketing or particular clinical themes (working with particular experiences, issues, types of persons) or theories.

What to Expect

The group will provide support for your maturation as a therapist. It will assist you in developing and articulating your approach as a clinician and help you in further understanding your work with your clients and your role as a clinician.

In addition to case discussions, I will also provide articles on various topics related to the core clinical themes emerging in the group at least once a month, with the suggestion of a review of one article per quarter if the group desires.

Discussion about the impact of the supervision process will be a key experiential component of the group. In the course of the group, we will also explore the use of different approaches to the psychotherapy process. Although the group will have a depth and relational foundation, all theoretical orientations are welcome.

Case Presentations

Case presentations will provide you and other members of the groups with opportunities to explore and learn together. They are also intended to help and support you with any areas of your clinical work that have become difficult, worrisome, confusing or stagnant. Throughout the course of the group, you will be offered opportunities to present in different ways. These will include:

Presenting a transcript or tape of an actual session
Discussing the details of a particular client or circumstance that confuses or challenges you
Summarizing a case following a standard presentation outline
Using a creative process to evoke your work with you client
Sharing a dream, drawing or a photo of a sand-tray configuration created by your client

During the presentation, you will be asked what kind of assistance you would like. The group will be invited to offer their reveries, associations and thoughts about what you have presented. If desired, suggestions will also be offered. It is my hope that the group will help you continue to develop your clinical skills, provide an intimate and stimulating opportunity for collaborative learning with your peers and also provide you with the support, guidance, encouragement and supervision you need for your caseload. The exploration of counter-transference and reveries will be a key focus of the group.

Learning Goals

The general conversations and case presentations are intended to help you:

Continue to develop your clinical skills and approach as well as your professional identity
Develop more confidence in your abilities as a clinician
Further identify your knowledge of different theoretical orientations and perspectives
Consider your client and their psychological life through a psychodynamic lens
Incorporate more relational exploration in your sessions with your clients
Develop your capacities to sense, perceive and respond to emotional cues and feelings, whether anger, shame, guilt, grief, love, aversion and desire and their more subtle manifestations
Become more familiar with the influence and expression of the unconscious in psychotherapy
Understand, identify and work with transference allusions and communications
Identify and understand your own particular patterns of counter-transference, and how these responses can be used to help guide or inform your work with your clients
Become more familiar with the ways your experience of yourself, your life and your inner world intersects with and influences your work as a clinician
Develop your ability to decipher between your own subjective feelings and those induced by the psychotherapy process, including feelings of uncertainty, confusion and inadequacy
Respond to ambivalence, impasses or difficulties related to fees, punctuality and cancellations with more self-assurance
Learn to think about psychological symptoms both through traditional and alternative diagnostic frameworks

It is my hope that the group will offer a constructive, stimulating and empowering learning environment for your development, whatever your theoretical orientation.

About Me

I am trained primarily in psychodynamic/relational ways of working however supervise interns working from a variety of orientations including somatic and gestalt approaches. I am passionately interested in the supervision process, finding it one of the most rewarding aspects of my work.

To Discuss the Group

Please contact me at 415-533-9724 or via email at [email protected].