Renee Obstfeld, Ph.D, LP, NCPsyA, LCAT

I work with adults to cope with personal, professional and relational challenges. I rely on a combination of body-based, and psychodynamic approaches to help people understand and better regulate shifting states, moods, and impulses.

I work from the premise that feeling understood is key to recovery in psychotherapy. At the same time, I challenge people to notice aspects of their experience they have learned to dismiss, only to be overwhelmed by them later; or to find they keep repeating the same undesirable patterns. In the course of working with me, people typically develop alternatives to reactions that they had believed were instant, inevitable, and out of their control. They question and eventually refute negative beliefs they had long carried in their bodies (as well as in the form of thoughts). I do not provide the instant solutions or "steps" people often crave in order to release themselves from the binds they've grown stuck in; I believe in everyone's capacity and innate inclination to grow. Consistently, I've been amazed and delighted by the creative solutions people find for their conflicts and dilemmas when provided with the space to do so. In my work, I draw on years of experience and training in psychodynamic psychotherapy, sensorimotor psychotherapy, EMDR, and art therapy. My work experience includes inpatient psychiatric populations, and work with people who have experienced catastrophic, political, interpersonal and complex trauma. Having worked most extensively in facilities treating substance use disorders, a large part of my practice is currently devoted to people who misuse substances including alcohol. These typically occur with other problems of self regulation and self defeating behaviors. My approach will always focus on you as a person, not just your symptoms and behaviors.