Alan Dreifuss

Alan Dreifuss
Position
SPS Supervisor
Office
3rd Floor Bertolini

Alan Dreifuss, PhD., is a licensed psychologist as well as MFT prior. He graduated from New York University with a BS in Psychology and earned a masters and doctoral degree from the California Institute of Integral Studies. He did pre-doctoral Internships at Mnt. Zion West Side Crises Clinic, and Haight Ashbury Psychological Services. He continued post-doctoral work as a psychological assistant with local psychologists in Sonoma County. Work experience includes being a psychologist at Sonoma County Mental Health Resource program where he supervised pre-doctoral psychology trainees there. He has been a staff psychologist at Kaiser Child and Family team and spent most of his Kaiser career on the adult team. He supervised postdoctoral students at that site. He has had a psychotherapy practice in Santa Rosa during much of his institutional work. He is currently now seeing a small number of patients on video calls only.

A long-standing primary interest of Dr. Dreifuss is the interplay of Western psychology and particularly Buddhist psychology. His dissertation was entitled “A Phenomenological Inquiry of 6 Psychotherapists Who Practice Buddhist Meditation.” As a long- time practitioner of Buddhist meditation with training and studying with teachers and texts, he has long felt the necessity of bringing forth both wisdom traditions into his therapy practice. CBT and DBT have provided helpful structures. He also finds gestalt work, existential explorations, attachment issues and training people to utilize body awareness and mindfulness practices very helpful. He has practiced and trained doing both brief and long- term therapy.

He has lived rurally in Sonoma County for many of the almost 50 years since leaving NY. He finds that being closely connected to the natural world is extremely helpful to maintain balance and joy. Playing guitar is an increasingly positive activity as well as visiting with family, friends and going on local hikes.