My educational and training background
I received my doctorate (Ph.D.) in Clinical Psychology from The New School in New York City and my M.A. in Psychology from SUNY, Albany.
Born and raised in Istanbul, I moved to the United States after graduating from the top-ranked Bosphorus (Bogazici) University to pursue my dream of becoming a clinical-psychologist. This was about two decades ago. After several years of work during my master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral studies, I received my license as a clinical psychologist first in New York State and then in New Jersey and many other states in the U.S. through PSYPACT.
Throughout my graduate training I worked in major hospital clinics in New York City, including Beth Israel Medical Center, South Beach Psychiatric Center, and Lenox Hill Hospital. In addition, I coordinated the New School Psychological Assessment Services for four years from its inception, and worked closely with college students. I completed my postdoctoral fellowship at the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, further specializing in child psychopathology, child-parent relationships, developmental disorders and trauma treatment. Currently, I work as a supervising psychologist at Lenox Hill Hospital, where I spent two years as a trainee and another two years as a staff psychologist. At Lenox Hill I currently provide supervision to doctoral students and conduct research on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.
My approach to psychotherapy
I am specialized in working with both adults and children. Having specialized in both adult and child psychotherapy allows me to deeply understand your challenges from multiple perspectives, including your childhood and relationships with your parents. Another specialty of mine is perinatal problems, including depression and anxiety during pregnancy and after giving birth, as well as pregnancy and fertility related challenges.
Our minds and bodies are hosts to emotions, thoughts, sensations, dreams, wishes and many other types of mental states every single day. Sometimes we are aware of them, sometimes they are outside of our consciousness. To me, psychotherapy is a collaborative process in which we observe these thoughts and feelings (both readily available and sometimes not so available, automatic ones), understand them, accept them, and see how they are linked with your behaviors in relationships, friendships, at school, at work etc.
Being “seen” constitutes the very basis of healing. Therefore, I will invite you to speak as freely as possible in our sessions. My first goal is to understand your mental space accurately and non-judgmentally. In addition, I use the psychotherapy process as a “lab” where we closely look at your relationship patterns and study them. Here my goal is to help you to gain an understanding of deeper patterns and processes in your life. This understanding creates meaningful and durable change at a pace that suits your needs. Above all these, when we work together, I deeply care about you as a human being, and make a commitment to help you get what you want out of psychotherapy.
I am a firm believer in individualized treatment. Therefore I make sure that my clinical practice includes a variety of theoretical approaches that I use flexibly, based on who you are as a person.
I base my primary approach in integrated, evidence based practices including Attachment Based Family Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure and Response Prevention, Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness Based Approaches, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Family Therapy, and Child-Parent Psychotherapy (with minors).
My research
I am always excited to conduct psychotherapy research because it informs my clinical practice and keeps me up-to-date with respect to new approaches in child and adult psychotherapy. My publications and academic presentations have focused on a psychological concept called “mentalization”, a central psychological concept that lies in between cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness based approaches and attachment theory. Mentalization means understanding and being aware of emotions and thoughts in ourselves and others, linking them with actions, and finally using them in socially adaptive ways. It paves the way for healthier relationship skills and psychological wellness. In fact it is a common factor in various forms of psychotherapy that you might have heard of, or are currently seeking.
My clinical practice and research go hand-in-hand. I conducted clinical research at the renowned Center for Attachment Research at the New School in collaboration with the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services (JBFCS) between 2010 and 2016. And I have been conducting research on perinatal (pregnancy and postpartum) mood and anxiety disorders at Lenox Hill Hospital since 2017. Several institutions awarded external funding to this research program. Based on my research and clinical background, I present seminars and workshops on a regular basis, both internally at Lenox Hill Hospital and externally at international conferences.
Some of my publications in academic journals and books
Blom, I., & Bekar, O. (2024). Developing a Maternal Identity: Theoretical, Developmental and Clinical Considerations. Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 21(3), 405–429. https://doi.org/10.1080/1551806X.2024.2375985
Bate, J., Bekar, O., & Blom, I. (2018). A Mother, A Baby, and Two Treatment Approaches: Discussing A Switch Case from CBT and Mentalization Perspectives. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 17(4), 328-345. doi: 10.1080/15289168.2018.1526159
Halfon, S., Bekar, O., & Gürleyen, B. (2017). An empirical analysis of mental state talk and affect regulation in two single-cases of psychodynamic child therapy. Psychotherapy, 54(2), 207-219. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pst0000113
Dr. Ozlem Bekar 