I have been practicing psychotherapy in San Francisco since 2006. My approach values a dynamic and holistic model of care, considering your healing from the perspective of the interconnectedness of mind, body, and essential self. My dedication to mindfulness practice and enthusiasm for psychodynamic theory, attachment theory, and neuroscience influences and informs my clinical work.
Click the links to the right to read about the approaches integrated in my work.
Your therapy will be a unique combination, based on your needs, of the approaches described on the other pages, all held within the larger frame and developmental model of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Fundamentally, I see that psychotherapy works by addressing the emotional/behavioral patterns and relationship styles we learn in childhood that are often less adaptive as adults. I’m referring to behaviors that cause people to be labeled by others as insecure, jealous, rageful, needy, aloof, anxious, or withdrawn. Psychotherapy can seem to work by meeting and safely gratifying the human longing to be seen and understood by a caring person and, perhaps more importantly, by oneself. My intention is to meet your personal experience with empathy and to guide you in an inquiry around your issue, and sometimes to challenge you with a different perspective or with goals that will help you push past the stuckness. As this is accomplished, and through examining the moments where it is not, progress in therapy can exceed ordinary expectations of what therapy can be.
I hold a BA in Contemplative Psychology from Naropa University, where Eastern and Western approaches to psychology are taught along with mindfulness training. I have been practicing meditation regularly for over 10 years. While I rarely bring this practice explicitly into sessions, it’s effects enhance my work. Mindfulness practice trains me to sustain a calm, focused attention and a non-judgmental, curious stance on whatever arises in session. One benefit of therapy is that this stance is passively learned, helping you build self-acceptance and self-understanding. As I listen carefully to you, you learn to listen more closely to yourself, which can lead to a discovery of sources of inner guidance and affirmation.
My Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology is from New College of California, where my dedication to diversity awareness and social change was supported. My education there was an exciting time of rigorous, critical examination of psychodynamic theory and how it applies to the issues relevant to our specific time and place.
I am a Level 1 AEDP therapist and have participated in over 50 consultation group sessions where AEDP is taught through close examination of videotaped sessions. aedpinstitute.com.
I completed the Sandplay in Education program from 2008-2010, where I provided play therapy for elementary school children while receiving training and supervision. http://sandplay.org/about_sandplay.htm
In 2009, I completed Foundations of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis.
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Jacob Art, MFT, MFC 50229
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Jacob Art, MFT459 Fulton St. #107 San Francisco, CA 94102 415-255-2558
