My formal education includes a B.A degree in Psychology and an MA in Social and Industrial Psychology (Bar-Ilan University). Complementary MA studies in Clinical Psychology (Tel-Aviv University) enabled me to undergo training in Clinical Psychology. I completed my PhD in psychology in 1996 (Bar-Ilan University).
For many years, research in psychology was my main professional interest. After completing my BA, I received The Royal Danish Scholarship to study in Copenhagen, Denmark. I took part in the well-known Danish longitudinal study of children with schizophrenic mothers, from 1984 to 1986. I studied resilience in a group of these children. Our study was presented at the World Psychiatric Symposium in 1986, in Jaipur, India.
I was also part of a team researching PTSD among Israeli soldiers. We studied social support, locus of control and coping resources as factors connected with PTSD and social and occupational dysfunction after participating in war. Mario Mikulincer supervised this research, which formed the basis of my MA thesis. It was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1988.
My PhD thesis aimed at locating the sources of adults’ attachment. Supervised again by Mario Mikulincer, I studied temperamental characteristics, perceived relationships with parents in childhood, and parents’ own characteristics (their own attachment styles and temperamental characteristics) as possible sources of attachment variations in adulthood.
Since 1990, and after years of focusing on the research aspects of psychology, I have been concentrating on the study and practice of psychotherapy with adults, adolescents and children. I completed a three-year clinical internship in Eitanim Psychiatric Hospital, Jerusalem, in an acute ward for adults, and an outpatient clinic for children, adolescents and families. As a fully licensed Clinical Psychologist, I continued working in the outpatient clinic for children, adolescents, and families. During this time, I completed three years of training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy at the Psychoanalytic Institute in Jerusalem.
Influenced by psychoanalytic studies and by extensive supervised clinical experience, I use psychoanalytic thinking (relational approach) and a variety of psychotherapeutic techniques in my work. I have a Canadian as well as an Israeli Clinical Psychologist license.
Since the time I began my graduate studies, I have taught students of Psychology, Social Work and Education at Bar-Ilan University, Lewinsky College, and Beit-Berl College (all in the Tel-Aviv area). In 2003, I moved to Toronto. Since then, my academic base has been the department of psychology at York University.
Currently, I am a Professor at York University and have a private practice in Clinical Psychology. I work with adults, children, and adolescents.
I am married and I have two sons and a daughter..
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