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About

A lifelong commitment to deep self-inquiry has shaped both my personal and professional life. Throughout my career, I have explored how our experience of self and other gives rise to emotional suffering and how self-reflective awareness can become a path toward greater freedom.

 

My early academic work focused on neuroscience, psychology, and psychopharmacology, driven by a fascination with consciousness and the relationship between mind and brain. Over time I realized that scientific observation alone could not answer the questions that most deeply interested me. My attention gradually shifted from studying consciousness to exploring subjective experience directly.

 

Inquiring Deeply has two distinct roots: my training in relational psychoanalysis and my practice of Buddhist insight (Vipassana) meditation. My principal aim over four decades of study and practice has been to integrate these two traditions of thought into one coherent understanding. I maintained a clinical psychotherapy practice, taught contemplative relational psychotherapy, co-founded the Center for Mindfulness and Psychotherapy in Santa Monica, and served on faculty at the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies.

 

Over time I came to see that the human mind is organized around problems and our efforts to solve, avoid, or overcome them. More importantly, I came to understand that problems are not simply obstacles to overcome but invitations to deeper awareness.

 

These discoveries became the foundation for my writing, including Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: Inquiring Deeply (2017), Inquiring Deeply: Problems as a Path to Awareness (2023), and the ongoing Inquiring Deeply Newsletter.

 

My hope is that my writing will encourage readers to approach their own lives with greater curiosity, compassion, and a willingness to inquire deeply.

 

CREDENTIALS 

 

  • PhD : University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Postdoctoral Work : Dept of Psychiatry, UCLA
  • Licensure: Licensed Clinical Psychologist in California (PSY5593)
  • Psychoanalysis:    Certified Psychoanalyst & Faculty, Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies
  • Meditation : dedicated practice of Buddhist Insight (Vipassana) Meditation, Spirit Rock Meditation Center & elsewhere