Steven Reidbord MD is a board-certified psychiatrist with a career-long focus on psychotherapy, including early work as a psychotherapy researcher. Dr. Reidbord welcomes patients who seek to address more than surface symptoms — who realize something deeper leaves them depressed, anxious, adrift, unfulfilled, or in chronic conflict with others. While he mainly works with individual adults (18+), he has also worked successfully with couples. As a psychiatrist, he also prescribes medication when called for, but always as an adjunct to psychotherapy.
Dr. Reidbord’s main orientation is psychodynamic: an exploration of underlying feelings that drive dysfunctional behavior and relationships. But this is more of a dialog than talking to a “blank slate,” and Dr. Reidbord freely borrows from other approaches such as cognitive reframing, stress management, etc. His aim is to demystify the psychodynamic approach, to make it user-friendly. Psychotherapy is a collaboration, the product of two minds working together.
Dr. Reidbord’s work is informed by wide-ranging experience: published research, inpatient work, directing a teaching clinic for ten years, supervising and teaching psychiatry residents, and public outreach. In addition to maintaining a solo private practice continuously since 1995, he has authored a blog for the general public about psychiatry since 2008, and in early 2024 launched a YouTube channel called “More Than Meds,” on psychotherapy and psychologically-informed psychiatry.
The office is in an older, homey building in the Laurel Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, and unfortunately is not wheelchair accessible. It’s quiet, with lots of privacy. Dr. Reidbord is out of network for all private insurance, but will supply statements for you to submit for partial insurance reimbursement. See his website for much more information.
I am an outspoken advocate of in-person therapy. I first published a blog post on this back in 2013:
http://blog.stevenreidbordmd.com/?p=761
and then several more during the pandemic:
http://blog.stevenreidbordmd.com/?p=1480
http://blog.stevenreidbordmd.com/?p=1501
http://blog.stevenreidbordmd.com/?p=1559
http://blog.stevenreidbordmd.com/?p=1578
http://blog.stevenreidbordmd.com/?p=1586
If you don't want to plow through all of that, just read the last one, which summarizes my preference and rationale for in-person work. Or watch my YouTube video here:
https://youtu.be/S32380BaHig
In this 2nd of three peer-reviewed papers on the application of nonlinear dynamical modeling ("chaos theory") to psychotherapy, my co-author and I reported on technical analysis of heart rate physiology during psychotherapy. We showed that nonlinear analysis revealed characteristic "trajectories" of psychophysiology in the mathematical phase space, and we proposed that these served as markers of mental state changes in psychotherapy.
1992 - Reidbord SP & Redington DJ. Psychophysiological processes during insight-oriented psychotherapy: Further investigations into nonlinear psychodynamics. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 180(10): 649-657.
- Anxiety and panic disorders
- Depression
- General mental health
- Grief and loss
- Personal growth and self-esteem
- Self-harm and suicidal feelings
- Marriage and partnerships
- Personality disorders
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Eclectic/Integrative Therapy
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