Eilon Shomron-Atar

I began my clinical work shortly after the millennium. I was studying Psychology, Feminism, and East Asian Studies at Tel Aviv University. I found it fascinating how both disciplines approach change, transformation, and liberation from suffering from different directions. Both Western and Eastern therapy have remained influential in my clinical work to date. During this time I began working with people of all ages dealing with intense emotional and social situations. I collaborated with others in diverse milieus to resolve conflicts between children and parents, assist terminally ill adults in understanding the social-emotional dimensions of their physical conditions, and instill hope in suicidal adolescents.

Bridging these different theoretical approaches and different human needs was a need to articulate a psychotherapy that was both personally meaningful and socially transformative, both socially informed and personally transformative. Gilles Deleuze's work on schizoanalysis became a starting point for such an enunciation on the path to develop a vitalizing therapy which creates not only relief from symptoms but "a breath of fresh air, an open relationship with the world" (Deleuze and Guattari). My graduate studies in Feminism and Queer Studies (Gender Studies Department; Bar Ilan University, Israel) and Cultural Studies (History of Consciousness Department; UC Santa Cruz) enabled me to develop these ideas. Foremost due to the students I taught, these ideas took shape not only intellectually, but, more importantly, through their emotional and life-changing effect on those who engaged with them, through them.

After these explorations, I returned to clinical work. I pursued a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University in New York. Then, I completed Post-Doctoral Training in Psychoanalysis at The National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York. It was through this training that I realized the need to fill the gap between my experience in the Humanities (where I learned to be critically aware of the impact of the social dimension on the vitality of life) and Psychology (where I learned to address the particular struggles of people in the immediate). To date, I grow in my capacity to weave and interlace personal and social struggles in ways that are emotionally-socially transformative. I help people of all ages engage with the categories that hold us and limit us. My therapy combines psychoanalysis and schizoanalysis. It helps us cope with life's pressures and become vitalized children or adults.