About Katherine
My passion to understand people goes back at least to high school, when on the city bus ride to school I would sit across from someone and make up a story about the person’s life, weaving in details about who they were and how they got that way. So I went to college to become a Social Worker, but shortly after arriving there, changed my mind. I was taking a class in French, and fell in love with the sound of the language, so I majored in French, and did a graduate degree in the literature.
But that didn’t stop me from studying people and inventing stories that explained their lives. There was ample opportunity in the dorms, the cafeteria, the library and the student union. Traveling parts of Europe and South America after college afforded even more material for my imagined stories, and a returning desire to be in the field.
My parents were older than those of my peers, immigrants with an accent, and professional musicians. My Dad also held down a more traditional job in engineering to support the family, so I know what it’s like to struggle with a passion that might not lead anywhere, and to feel “different” from my friends.
After travel and grad school, I landed in New York. Jobs in academia and advertising were not satisfying, so feeling utterly lost, I began my own therapy. Within six months I found myself in training to become a therapist. I graduated from two separate Institutes – first Washington Square Institute for Psychotherapy and Mental Health (WSI), where I began to see patients in the early 90’s. But I was hungry for more rigorous training and supervision, so after graduation I enrolled with advanced placement at NPAP (National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis), which, despite my advanced status required substantial coursework and seeing two analytic patients thrice weekly in addition to those I saw once or twice a week in my private practice.
I had come full circle from those days on the bus. But now I knew the extent to which one must delve into your life to understand how you came to be the person sitting across from me. On that journey we’ll poke around at things that feel right, wrong, or both. Some of it may seem hard, some easy, some obvious, some hard to believe. A lot will be serious, but that doesn’t mean we won’t sometimes also get a hearty laugh out of it. We’ll come to recognize what habits or behaviors no longer serve you well, and help you resolve the conflicts that are getting in the way of achieving or resolving what’s not right in your life – a career, personal relationships and friendships, family troubles. Together we work to discover what’s underneath all that stress, anxiety and depression, and to come out the other side. I have learned how hard that is. From your end and mine.
I invite you to come in for a no-obligation consultation to see if you feel comfortable talking with me about what in your life is not how you want it to be. If not, there’s no charge.
Credentials & Training
- NPAP (National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis) – a rigorous 7-year program in both psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, which encompasses both classical psychoanalytic and newer schools of thought
- WSI (Washington Square Institute for Psychotherapy and Mental Health) – a 5-year program in psychoanalytic psychotherapy
- Licensed Psychoanalyst (LP) by the State of New York’s Office of the Professions
- License Number: 000396 (Verifiable with the NYS Office of the Professions at this link: http://www.nysed.gov/COMS/OP001/OPSCR1)
- Nationally Certified Psychoanalyst (NCPsyA), certified by NAAP (National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis)
- In practice for over 25 years
Areas of Specialization
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Self-Esteem
- Relationships
- Intimacy & Sexuality
- Stress Management
- Mourning & Loss
- Emotional Growth & Development
- Personality Disorders
- Gay & Lesbian Issues
- Career & Job Concerns
Professional Affiliations
- NPAP (National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis)
- NAAP (National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis)
- APSAA (American Psychoanalytic Association)
- ACA (American Counseling Association)
More Information
To learn more
Call: 212 228-2424 · Email: katherine.rabinowitz@gmail.com