susan tobin ph.d.

Let me help you move toward the change you want to see in your life. I am licensed in California for 26 years. I started as a peer counselor at Marquette University in Milwaukee Wisconsin while I was in college. I went on to get my Master's degree in College Counseling from The University of Delaware. Finally, I received my Ph.D. from University of Missouri- Columbia. After a year working in South Dakota I moved to California to work with college students at Chico State, taught counseling and women's studies at the University for a number of years and then moved to full time private practice work in 2000. My own personal interest since I was 4 years old was INTRApersonal psychology-- the study of the relationship a person has with their soul through the study of existential and transpersonal psychology. I studied at the Himalayan Institute in the Pocono Mountains, spent three summers learning Psychology as Spiritual Practice/ Body Centered Psychotherapy in Oregon. During college I lived for a winter in Bogota' South America where I studied Liberation Theology in La Programa para Concientizacion de los Norteamericanos. I continue to study spirituality and bring my understanding of the transpersonal into my counseling relationships. My training in graduate school was heavily focused on relational psychology and using the INTERpersonal relationship between therapist and client to create change. My dissertation focused on the single greatest cause of change in the counseling relationship: and not surprisingly it was the connection between the therapist and client-- how much they liked and respected each other-- that facilitated growth. My goal with each client is to have a deep respectful close relationship which growth and change is fostered and encouraged. On on personal note, I am married to a farmer and we have a deaf daughter who hears through cochlear implants. I live on a small farm now after growing up in the inner city of Chicago. As a child my life dream was to live in a high rise on Chicago's lakefront, but I traded that dream to live on a small farm, grow and preserve much of my own food and watch the sun rise and set from my great room each day. I have great empathy for my clients' challenges as I have struggled with anxiety, chronic pain and an autoimmune disorder since I was 16 years old. I lived the rules of "don't talk, don't trust, don't feel in my childhood, growing up in an alcoholic family. And now I live my life much more transparently and encourage my clients to do the same-- including bringing concerns, reactions or disagreements into the counseling space. Many of my clients have told me that they feel safe in our relationship because they are free to speak their mind. Bringing conflict and disagreement into the counseling relationship can be the most life-changing experience. That moment is often where true transformation begins. I take new clients through referrals all year. I open my practice to self referring clients in September and January. I tell all my new clients that we will meet for a few sessions and if the relationship feels right, we will continue. But if it does not feel right-- for either one of us-- then I will help them find another counselor who is a better fit- and my feelings won't be hurt. Because I know that the relationship is the primary cause of growth and change, I know that if the match is not good, growth will not happen. "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it" ~Helen Keller