Elke Schlager

I am a Harvard trained psychotherapist with over 20 years of clinical experience, the last 10 of which have been focused on the practice and research of Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP). I am a research associate at the Psychotherapy Research Program at Harvard Medical School, and a former faculty member at the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Massachussets General Hospital in Boston, MA. I practice a model of ISTDP that has evolved from over 50 years of psychotherapy research. This model incorporates aspects of psychodynamic psychotherapy, attachment theory, mindfulness and experiential therapy. I work with patients with depression, anxiety, trauma and difficulty with closeness. I have special interests in helping patients who are undergoing life transitions such as separation and divorce, bereavement, career, acculturation and chronic illness. I also have extensive experience working with creative artists, women with postpartum depression, infertility, menopause and eating disorders. Integrating mindfulness and ISDTP, I help patients reconnect with others and with parts of themselves that they may feel they have lost. I have found this reconnection to self and others to be essential in helping people resolve long-term issues that have kept them from fully enjoying and experiencing life.