Experience
Expertise
Empathy

I am known for my warmth and humor, my willingness to be direct when needed, and my empathic respect for your feelings. I'm curious about the way you think and the way you value life. I am willing to face difficulties and dangers at your side.

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I have been married and divorced, and I have raised two adopted children to adulthood. These days I am also raising triplets - three 15-year-olds - as a single father.  As a young man I never thought I would have a family, and I am blessed to have this unexpected wealth of challenge and joy.

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I am a therapist who believes in therapy, and I have been in therapy myself since young adulthood. My own personal growth is thanks to the care, attention and dedication of several generous healers. My experience with them inspires me every day to bring my best  intentions and my hard-won wisdom to each meeting. I am deeply grateful for the people who helped me and who shared the experiences that  make me the person I am today.

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I am an observant Jew, I attend shul on Shabbat, and Jewish ethics and faith support and define my life's purpose. I am sympathetic and curious about all people's experience. I have traveled widely, read deeply, and worked all my life to be available and helpful to people of all races and ethnicities, all gender identities and all sexual orientations. Nothing human is alien to me. I want you to feel welcome and understood here.

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I'm an experienced working person. After college I worked for ten years as a journalist and political activist and organizer. I wrote for US newspapers from Central American in the 1980s and I managed political campaigns statewide in Massachusetts.

 

I began my psychotherapy training in 1987, working on an inpatient psychiatric unit at Cambridge Hospital. After graduating from Simmons University School of Social Work in 1990, I worked in community mental health for several years. There I developed the first wrap-around program for disturbed children and teens in Massachusetts through a Department of Mental Health grant. I also carried a pager for a crisis team and was a member of a sexual abuse treatment team. 

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From 1998 to 2001 I was clinical director for a 70-bed residential treatment program for children and teenagers through the departments of Mental Health and Children & Families.

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Since 2001 my private practice has served people of all ages, with a special focus on families dealing with addiction, destructive and dangerous behavior in teens and children, major mental illness, neurodiversity and developmental problems, and personality problems related to trauma.

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Starting in 1987 I have worked with people in groups - a special love of mine - and I have advanced training in dynamic group therapy. I'm proud to say I ran a middle school boys' group continuously for  20  years. Currently I have two weekly groups for adults aged 40 and up.

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Education:

Harvard University BA magna cum laude 1977

Simmons University School of Social Work  MSW 1990

 

Postgraduate studies in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, structural and systemic family therapy,  treatment of trauma and PTSD, work with neurodiverse people, group psychotherapy.  I have been trained in several "alphabet" treatment modalities, including DBT, CBT, AEDP and IFS.

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In 2012 I completed a two-year fellowship in Infant Mental Health. I was surprised to learn that I was the first male therapist to participate in the 20 years of that program. It goes to show, I have my feminine side.

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I am LICSW licensed  in Massachusetts since 1992.

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I am a Certified Group Psychotherapist with the National Registry for Group Therapy.

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