Joseph Hamer, PhD

I work with a range of problems, from longstanding difficulties to current adjustment issues, including depression, grief and loss, relationship difficulties, immigration-integration problems, new life phase / identity issues, anxiety, psychosomatic symptoms, and borderline conditions. I enjoy working with people of every age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class and background. I come from the United States and have also studied and done research in a number of countries throughout Central America, East Africa, and Eastern Europe. Prior to private practice I trained and worked in a number of settings. Very formative was the volunteer work I was a part of in California State Prison, Sacramento. I did my doctoral internship at Rutgers among one of the most diverse student bodies in the U.S. And for two years I was a counselor at Chatham University, a women’s college in Pittsburgh. My theoretical influences include Zen Buddhism, Continental Philosophy, Cultural Anthropology, Critical Theory, Humanistic Psychology, and Psychoanalysis. I live and work in the existential paradox that while so much of what impacts us is beyond our control we are ultimately responsible for the lives we live. Sorting that out sometimes requires help.