A Psychoanalytically Informed Systemic Approach to Helping Wounded Families Heal

About this episode

Kenneth Perlmutter discusses his psychoanalytically informed systemic approach to helping wounded families heal.

In this episode, I speak with psychologist Kenneth Perlmutter about his work with wounded family systems and how his background shaped his therapeutic approach. Kenneth shared that he originally planned to go to medical school but switched to journalism, then worked in advertising in San Francisco in the 1980s. During that time, he worked with a therapist who made a profound impact on him, which ultimately inspired him to pursue graduate training and become a therapist himself. In 1989 he joined Boyer House as an intern, later becoming the Clinical Milieu Director, and it was there that he was placed on the Family Therapy team and found he really enjoyed working with family dynamics. Kenneth explained that his work is heavily informed by psychodynamic and psychoanalytic thinking, especially the ways people relate to others across different parts of their lives. He shared that his current clinic functions as a full-service mental health center with significant expertise in substance abuse, addiction recovery, and trauma-related disorders, and that many of their referrals involve college-age and young adult clients whose families are struggling to support them. We discussed how he…

People in this episode

Host: W Keith Sutton PsyD

Guest: Kenneth Perlmutter

Topics covered

• family therapy
• psychodynamic approach
• attachment patterns
• substance abuse
• trauma recovery

Keywords

• family systems
• psychotherapy
• mental health
• addiction recovery
• young adults

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Boyer House

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