Education and Professional Approach

Dr. Friedman received his Ph.D. from the California School of Professional Psychology at Berkeley in 1986 and became a licensed psychologist in California in 1988. His early training included positions at Mt. Zion and Children's Hospitals in San Francisco. Over the course of his professional development his mentors have included many of the most influential psychotherapists and researchers in the field. He has also served his professional community for many years through organizing advanced continuing education programs for fellow professionals, and has collaborated with many world-renowned speakers.

While Dr. Friedman has many years of clinical and teaching experience, he views himself as a continuous student within his exciting and ever evolving field. In particular, over the past two decades Dr. Friedman has been involved  with the rapidly burgeoning field of Interpersonal Neurobiology, which examines the way in which human relationships affect the brain, mind and body.  Cutting edge insights from recent brain science have vastly assisted us to overcome the paralyzing effects of trauma, ease human suffering, and to promote well-being within ourselves and in others.

Another profound personal influence on Dr. Friedman's work has been in the area of mindful awareness. Mindfulness has been described very simply as paying attention to one's experience in a particular way: by intention, in the present moment, and without judgement. During psychotherapy an increased mindfulness of coexisting dimensions of experience (i.e., the senses, emotions, images and thoughts) can be a powerful tool for insight into how our awareness shapes our experience. 

Mindfulness hones the capacity to better contact, and thus come to know, ourselves. The wisdom of our inner voice, from which we may have become alienated through the noise of external conflicts and internal distractions, can become better heard. Here the support and special understanding of the therapist may uniquely help to work through the emotional challenges which arise over the course of finding new and better ways.  By coming to know our deepest experiences with expanded awareness, we can more effectively apply ourselves to work towards our most important goals.