Catherine MacGillivray

“Family” isn’t just our relationships to the people we grew up with, the family is a system–and, like all systems, they sometimes encounter a glitch. If your family is facing an issue that’s impacting the entire unit, I can meet with each member of your family, perform an assessment, and make recommendations for the types of therapy services I can provide in order to help resolve these issues.

Whether or not your gender or sexuality is a stressor for you, I can give you LGBTQIA-competent support that celebrates your unique journey and identity. I am a queer-identified woman myself, and a professor of gender and sexuality studies, so I’m comfortable listening to diverse experiences and opinions, and I can give you fresh, first-hand perspectives on navigating LGBTQ+ life in a homophobic society.

If you need help in order to maintain or change a relationship in a healthy way, I can work with you and your partner(s) through a number of issues in a variety of studied ways. Utilizing Terry Real’s Relational Life Therapy method, I can help you with addressing miscommunications, resolving recurring conflicts, processing an affair, and working through issues in your sex life.

I trained at The Children's Institute in Oakland, CA, and have a special interest and expertise in working with the parents of adolescents on parenting challenges. I also work a lot with divorced co-parents, and have helped many families avoid the court system by working with me to hammer out a co-parenting agreement that works for all involved.

I trained for three years at The National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York City. NIP is a contemporary, relational psychoanalytic institute, home during his lifetime to relational psychoanalytic theorist Stephen Mitchell. In addition to relational/intersubjective approaches, I am especially informed by object relations and queer psychoanalysis.

I trained for three years at The National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York City. NIP is a contemporary, relational psychoanalytic institute, home during his lifetime to relational psychoanalytic theorist Stephen Mitchell. In addition to relational/intersubjective approaches, I am especially informed by object relations, attachment theory, and queer psychoanalysis.

As a lifelong feminist scholar and activist, I bring my intersectional lens to my clinical practice as well, which means that when we work together, we are looking at the external as well as the internal, the macro as well as the micro in terms of what is getting in your way. Taking a feminist approach to clinical work means that when we work together to help you feel empowered and to find your voice, we are not blind to the systemic barriers you may be confronting.