Jessica Broitman, PhD

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Brief Biography

Jessica was born in New York City, to Adeline and Harold Broitman. She attended the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she got her BA in 1975 in Art, Religion, and Psychology, and an MA in 1977 in Counseling Psychology. She became a member of the Intensive Treatment Team of the Boulder Mental Health Center. She ran the Gordon Beyer project, one of the first residential treatment programs for chronic schizophrenics in the country. While in Boulder, she met her husband, Gibor Basri, who is currently a Professor of Astronomy at UC Berkeley.

In 1980 they moved to the Bay Area, where she became the Program Coordinator for the Creative Living Center, another residential treatment program. She became a licensed Marriage, Family, and Child Counselor in 1980. Jessica then attended the Wright Institute in Berkeley, where she obtained her PhD in 1985. During this time she became involved with Joseph Weiss and Control Mastery Theory. She formalized the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group as a non-profit organization in 1993. She became a licensed Psychologist in 1987.

Our son, Jacob Avram Basri, was born in 1991. He is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College (2013) and now a director/actor living in New York City.

Jessica began study at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute in 1996, and graduated in 2001. She has a private practice doing psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in Berkeley, and remains involved with the SFPRG as its President emerita. She was also instrumental in the initiation of the new SF Psychotherapy Training Center and Clinic, and serves as the current Executive Director. She joined the Faculty of the Wright Institute in 2001. She was also on the Board of the "I Have a Dream - Oakland" Foundation for most of its operation. She was the 2002 President of the Claremont Book Club. She has become an expert on non-verbal learning disabilities (NVLD), and recently co-authored 2 books on that topic for practitioners and parents (see link above). For a half-hour video on NVLD featuring the authors, please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymdZUuB-T4&feature=youtu.be .

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