About Dr. Stephen Robinson

There is great complexity to being human, so I resist the idea that any particular approach to mental health care is always superior to another.

Summary – About Me

• Diverse professional education
  • Child/human development doctorate
  • Neurobiology and neuropsychology
  • Family systems
  • Adult and child psychoanalysis
• There is no one “true” approach to treating the struggles of the mind, because there is great complexity to being human
• Core principles guiding my thinking
  • Seeing people’s struggles within the framework of relationships
  • Forces and structures of feelings, especially rooted in childhood that are outside of conscious awareness, powerfully influence and shape people’s self-representations, actions and relationships
  • Feeling that your therapist understands you, really “gets it”, is critical to successful therapy
• Diverse professional experiences
  • Inpatient and outpatient adult and child services
  • Pediatric neuropsychological assessments
  • School consultations
  • Director of a sexual abuse clinic
  • Treating adults and children in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy
  • Private practice
• Training and work experiences (curriculum vita)

Diversity of Training – My professional education has been diverse: a doctorate in child/human development, a dissertation on the neurobiological effects of early life malnutrition, a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience and neuropsychology, training in family systems, and later, adult and child psychoanalysis. Most recently I have studied and been deeply impressed with the value of mindfulness practice in mental health care and in improving overall quality of life. This diversity of experiences has contributed to my indelible vision of human complexity.

No One Truth – Throughout my career, I have resisted the claims that one approach to mental health care is superior to another. I believe there is no one “truth,” no single right way to think about the mind and the forces that shape it. There is great complexity to being human, and accordingly, many ways to understand the mind and address its struggles. Each theoretical approach can contribute to healing the troubles of the mind.

Core Principles Guiding My Thinking – I view people’s struggles within the framework of their important relationships, especially those from childhood; there are out-of-awareness forces and structures of feelings and thoughts that shape people’s actions and relationships, as well as their internal lives, their inner conflicts, and how they understand themselves and their relationships. I also believe that the experience of feeling that your therapist understands you, that he/she really “gets it”, is critical to a successful experience in therapy.

Diverse Professional Experiences – Like my training, my work experiences have been similarly diverse, and this diversity has informed my clinical practice.

1. Extremes of mental distress: having trained and been on staff on child and adult inpatient services, I have worked closely with people in the most acute phases of their dysregulated states of mind.
2. Neuropsychology, cognitive processing: having performed adult and child neuropsychological assessments, I have a good sense of how cognitive and other processing inefficiencies can influence adult, and especially children’s academic and social functioning.
3. Educational consultation: I have significant experience advocating for children around educational plans within their schools, and also consulting to school systems and special educators.
4. Trauma: having spent three years running a sexual abuse treatment program, I have become very familiar with the effects of trauma and have worked with individuals who have struggled with the aftermath of childhood and/or adult trauma.
5. Psychodynamic psychotherapy: child and adult psychoanalytic training has equipped me with the skills to work with people in psychodynamic psychotherapy and in intensive psychoanalytic treatment, meeting several times per week.

Full Curriculum Vita

Education

• Columbia College, Columbia University – BA American and Modern European History 1965
• Columbia Graduate Faculties, American History 1965 – 1967
• Teachers College, Columbia University – MA Developmental Psychology 1970
• University of Illinois – Ph.D. Human Development 1979

Training

• Connecticut Valley Hospital, Middletown, CT – Clinical Psychology Intern 1978 – 1979
• Judge Baker Guidance Center, Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA – Clinical Child Psychology Intern 1979-1980
• Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston, MA – Department of Psychiatry, Postdoctoral Fellow 1980-1983

Advanced Training

• Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis (MIP), graduated 1999
• Combined Child Analysis Program, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (BPSI), Psychoanalytic Institute of New England (PINE), 2000 to present

Institutional Positions

• Faculty, Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis (MIP), co-taught Child Development for six years
• MIP committees – Curriculum Committee, Curriculum Review Committee, Program Committee, and ad hoc committee for developing a child psychoanalytic training program at MIP

Work Experience

• Judge Baker Guidance Center, Boston, MA – 1983 – 1985
• Child and Adult Clinical Psychologist and Neuropsychologist – different agencies and hospitals, 1985 – 1991
• The Arbour Hospital – Inpatient Clinical Psychologist – 1986 – 1988
• New England Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry – Director of Sexual Abuse Clinic 1991-1994
• Needham Psychotherapy Associates – Clinical Psychologist and Partner – 1995 – 2011
• Private Practice in Clinical Psychology – 1985 to present

Personal

Married with three grown children, 2 boys and a girl.