ABOUT ROBERT

I hold a Master of Arts in Social Clinical Psychology from the famed social-political institution, The New College of California. I was clinical trained by psychoanalytic Italian clinician Dr. Lucca Didonna and psychoanyaltic Israeli Clinician Dr. Channa Eckstein. Both psychoanalytically trained psychodynamic clinicians.

I earned a Bachelor of Art degree with a focus on Art History with an emphasis on Art and Architecture. I studied under the tutelage of Yale trained professor Dr. Judith Bettleheim. I spent many years working in the Fine Art Auction world before returning to school to study clinical psychology. I opened my private practice in San Francisco in 2005. In 2020, I returned to Southern California after 30 + years in San Francisco. I now reside in the Palm Springs area.

Over the past 15 years, my clinical work has focused on complex trauma, PTSD, Relational Trauma, Attachment difficulties, life transitions, and the process of finding identity and individuation. Additionally, I am a certified Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) clinician and use this powerful tool in my practice when clinically appropriate, to help clients with a wide range of issues that include: eating disorders in remission, phobias, generalized fear, PTSD and substance use relapse prevention.

Please see the section EMDR on this website for more information about EMDR.

Psychotherapy is a process. It is not a place to FIX but a place to figure things out. It will require time and patience. You lead. I follow. My role is to mediate thought, observe and offer insights. The time you will need to spend in therapy is up to you and is different for everyone. Sometimes, clients may only need a few months to sort out a specific issue and others may spend much more time in therapy resoving and deconstructing complex issues and history. We should get a feel for how long you might need to be in therapy within the first few sessions.

Please note: if you are in crisis, please call 911 or a crisis intervention therapist.

Once the crisis passes, you will be ready to explore this type of work.

Robert Norgaard is a certified EMDR clinician, certified by Emdria International. Robert is also a member of the Parnell Institute for EMDR