Professional Background
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
– Anais Nin
I am a licensed psychologist in Los Angeles with 30 years of broad clinical psychotherapy experience.
Despite our human commonalities, each of us is also quite unique. I believe that psychotherapy is a highly personal process, and I am careful to “tailor” it sensitively to the uniqueness of each person and his or her needs, expectations and goals. My commitment to and passion for my work along with a natural, warm and peaceful energy encourages people to feel safe and inspires them to take risks and stretch themselves emotionally. By listening attentively to all you share about yourself – your thoughts and feelings, fears and hopes – I will help you as you work on reaching a more expansive and deeper understanding of yourself, your past and your present in order to help move your life forward in a more satisfying way.
As a multi-cultural and multi-lingual therapist (in addition to English, I also speak Hebrew, Russian and Spanish) who is personally familiar with immigration and the challenges of adaptation and acculturation, I’ve been involved with various international communities in Los Angeles and have an extensive expertise in working with issues pertaining to immigration and relocation stress, cross-cultural transitions and the complexities of acculturation process. I also have an interest in and extensive experience working with various forms of trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I am a proud volunteer with “The Soldiers Project,” providing free of charge therapy for vets and their families (TheSoldiersProject.org). I have worked in various mental health settings, including UCLA and the department of Psychiatry at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. In addition to my broad post-doctoral training, I was certified in “Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy” by the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute & Society and the Psychoanalytic Center of California.
In addition to my work as a psychotherapist, I’m passionate about teaching and training the next generations of therapists. I have taught psychology graduate students at The Chicago School of Psychology, Pepperdine University and Antioch University. I had worked with psychology interns as a clinical supervisor at The Maple Counseling Center in Beverly Hills. I also served on the faculty of the “Doctoring Program” at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where I helped train medical students on enhancing their sensitivity to patients’ mental states and recognizing patients’ emotional needs in times of a medical crisis. I taught a similar course at Yo Sun University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Throughout the years, I have also made numerous public presentations on various subjects, including coping with the stress of infertility and pregnancy loss, cross-cultural transitions, and trauma. From the early work on my dissertation, in which I chose to focus on emotional abuse as a form of child abuse that could exist independently of physical and/or sexual abuse, I continued to conduct many trainings and presentations about the importance of recognizing emotional abuse of a child as a devastating experience and its long-term mental consequences. I am pleased to see that today, at least in the state of California, one could report an emotional abuse of a child even in the absence of sexual and/or physical abuse. I also presented extensively on the topic of sexual violence against women and was interviewed on the show “L.A. Woman Show” about the domestic and sexual violence against women in Los Angeles immigrant communities.
I am exceedingly passionate about my work as a clinical psychologist, and I know that embarking on a path of healing and growth is a courageous and important first step for you. If you are ready to overcome the roadblocks currently standing in your way, I am committed to working with you to achieve your goals in moving forward and living your life to its fullest potential. I invite you to email me with any questions you might have and to schedule an appointment. I’m looking forward to speaking with you.
Dr. Kaplan is a first-rate clinician and thinker!
– Dr. Michael Diamond