Faculty Members of the Clinical Psychology (PsyD) Program

Department Chair

Bryant L. Welch, JD, PhD

Director of Clinical Training
Mera Atlis, PhD

Assistant Director of Clinical Training

Janis Phelps, PhD

Core Faculty

Frank Echenhofer, PhD, received his PhD in Developmental Psychology from Temple University in 1985. He has been a clinical research associate at Temple University and has been in private practice since 1985. His specializations, which bridge east-west psychology, are in the general areas of eastern and western comparative psychology, philosophy, and psychophysiology.

He has done research in exceptional and deficit attention (ADHD, mild brain injury, single-pointed concentration and visualization meditation), EEG biofeedback for normalizing the EEG associated with attention and arousal level problems, and EEG assisted self-regulation methods for creativity, meditation facilitation, imagery self-regulation, and experimental transpersonal psychology.

Frank has conducted research with Tibetan Buddhist meditators in India and meditators from the United States. He has lectured and written articles on the physiology and phenomenology of meditation, the integration of developmental and transpersonal psychologies, comparative biological psychology, and Eastern psychology.

Dr. Andrew Harlem received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago's Committee on Human Development (2002) and his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania (1990, summa cum laude). His educational background is interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of clinical psychology, cultural psychology, psychological anthropology, and life course development studies.

Dr. Harlem completed his pre and postdoctoral clinical training at Cambridge Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he completed a fellowship in psychodynamic psychotherapy. His clinical specialties include depression, anxiety, relationship issues, gender and sexuality, loss and mourning, cultural adjustment, adolescence, and adolescent development, parenting, clinical supervision, learning disabilities, and psychoeducational assessment.

Dr. Harlem is a former Jacob K. Javits Fellow in Psychology (1994-1998), NIH Culture, Health & Human Development Fellow (1998), and NIMH National Research Service Award recipient (1998-2000). He has presented and published papers on the topics of psychoanalysis, dissociation, culture, immigration, clinical pedagogy and supervision, and mental illness in Sri Lanka, where he served as a United States Peace Corps volunteer (1992-1994). Dr. Harlem has presented his work at meetings of the American Psychological Association, International Society for Psychotherapy Research, the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of the American Psychological Association, Mid-Atlantic Society for Asian Studies, and Harvard University's Continuing Education Series.

Dr. Harlem is an Assistant Editor for Psychoanalytic Dialogues. He is a past president of the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (NCSPP). He serves on the Section IV Senate, Task Force on Immigration, and Multicultural Concerns Committee of Division 39 (Psychoanalysis) of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Harlem is also a member of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis (IARPP).

Dr. Harlem is a licensed psychologist in the State of California. He maintains an active psychotherapy, assessment and consultation practice in San Francisco and Oakland.

Katie McGovern, PhD, received her Ph.D. in Experimental Cognitive Psychology from the Center for Research in Learning, Perception, and Cognition at the University of Minnesota in 1983. While there, she studied the psychology and development of speech and language. Since 1991, she has been teaching clinical psychology doctoral students in the San Francisco Bay area.

Her scholarly publications and presentations include work on the scientific study of consciousness including Global Workspace Theory, the relationship of consciousness, feelings, and emotion, cognitive neuroscience, as well as Christian Mysticism and the Western contemplative tradition. She is a trained spiritual director and retreat leader and combines her interest in spirituality and spiritual development with her interest in neuroscience and consciousness in her dissertation supervision.

Esther Nzewi, PhD, received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology (1978) from New York University. She joined the psychology faculty following 15 years of college teaching, clinical practice, and consultation in Nigeria, her homeland.

In addition to maintaining a private practice in Owerri, Nigeria, Esther chaired the Department of Psychology at Alvan Ikoku College of Education for five years, where she also instructed a broad range of courses. Her scholarly and research interests are reflected in frequent publications which emphasize women's roles, child welfare, family themes, and cross-cultural perspectives in content areas which include marital therapy, personality assessment, child development, psychopathology, and therapeutic intervention.

Janis Phelps, PhD, received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology (1986) from the University of Connecticut. Her research and scholarly writing has focused on clinical studies in enhanced expectancies and treatment, and mind-body wellness as it correlates to psychotherapy outcome.

Dr. Phelps' theoretical orientation is in transpersonal and wellness therapy models, Eastern disciplines, and the interaction of meditation and creativity.,Dr. Phelps has been a full-time graduate professor since 1988. She maintains a small private practice with Dr. Howard Kornfeld & Associates in pain management, behavioral medicine and addictionology.

Kaisa Puhakka, PhD, is professor of psychology at CIIS and formerly was core faculty at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. She teaches psychotherapy, Buddhist thought and meditation, and transformation of consciousness. She is a former editor of The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology.

Dr. Puhakka holds MA degrees in philosophy and psychology, a PhD in experimental psychology form the University of Toledo, and a postdoctoral diploma in clinical psychology from Adelphi University. She has published a book and some thirty articles in the fields of comparative philosophy, phenomenology, and psychotherapy.

She is coeditor (with Tobin Hart and Peter Nelson) of Transpersonal Knowing: Exploring the Horizon of Consciousness (2000). For more than thirty years, she has been a student of a variety of Buddhist practices, including monastic Rinzai Zen.

Benjamin R. Tong, PhD, received his PhD (1974) from the California School of Professional Psychology. He is emeritus faculty in the Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University. Dr. Tong directs a school of Tai Ch'i Ch'uan, Ch'i Gung and Taoist studies.

A member of the steering committee of the International Karen Horney Society, he maintains a private practice in psychotherapy and organizational consultation. Dr. Tong's areas of interest include cross-cultural issues, critical social thought, chaos theory, systemic/strategic approaches, existential neopsychoanalytic therapy, stress and trauma, and mind-body health and healing. His current scholarly interests include indigenous health and healing practices, and the relevance of Ch'i Gung for mental health work.

Douglas Vakoch, PhD, received his PhD in Clinical Psychology with a Quantitative Concentration from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His earlier training was in comparative religion with an emphasis on Buddhism (BA, Carleton College) and in the history and philosophy of science (MA, University of Notre Dame). Dr. Vakoch is a licensed psychologist in the state of California, and his psychological research and clinical interests include topics in psychotherapy, ecopsychology, and methodologies of psychological research.

Dr. Vakoch has published widely in scholarly books and journals in psychology, anthropology, space sciences, and the relationship between the arts and sciences. He serves as General Editor of the book series Ecofeminist Theory and Practice, published by Berghahn Books, and he is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Ecopsychology.

In addition to his position at CIIS, Dr. Vakoch is also the Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute, a nonprofit organization in Silicon Valley that conducts research and educational programs in astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

Through the SETI Institute, Dr. Vakoch coordinates an international network of scholars in the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities as they contemplate how we might communicate something about the human condition to civilizations that may exist around distant stars.

As a spokesperson on the cultural aspects of the SETI, he has been interviewed on radio and television shows on the BBC, NPR, ABC, The Learning Channel, The Discovery Channel, and many others. His work in SETI been featured in newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, Nature, Science, New Scientist, and Der Spiegel.

Leland van den Daele, PhD, ABPP, graduated with a specialty in clinical developmental psychology from Purdue University. Dr. van den Daele is a former David Ross Fellow; NIMH Senior Post-Doctoral Fellow; and Fellow with the International Institute of Humanistic Studies.

He graduated from the Karen Horney Psychoanalytic Institute in New York City, where he served as supervising psychoanalyst in the Program in Psychotherapy. He is a current Fellow, Academy of Clinical Psychology, and Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, American Board of Professional Psychology. In addition to his activities at CIIS, Dr. van den Daele is a member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis and Research Director at Psychodiagnostics, Inc..

With more than 40 journal articles, book chapters, a monograph, an edited book, and two authored books, Dr. van den Daele conducts research in moral judgment and values, cognition and logic, dreams and adaptation, music and imagery, and the relation of these areas to culture, psychological development, and psychoanalysis.

Bryant L. Welch, JD, PhD, has been a nationally prominent psychologist for over thirty years. Dr. Welch graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School before receiving his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1976. He is also a Research Associate graduate of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute..

From 1986 to 1993 Dr. Welch initiated and ran the American Psychological Association Practice Directorate leading organized psychology through one of its most successful advocacy eras. Under Dr. Welch's leadership psychologists gained access to practice in Medicare, hospitals, and psychoanalysis. He was also one of the first critics to warn of the dangers of the managed health care system.

Dr. Welch has written regular monthly columns in the mental health trade press for twenty years and is currently a blogger with Huffington Post. Most recently Dr. Welch has published his first book, State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind, (Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martins Press, June, 2008). The book is a psychological analysis of contemporary American politics.

Tanya Wilkinson, PhD, received her PhD (1979) in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in Berkeley. She maintains a private practice in psychotherapy and consultation from a Jungian/feminist perspective.

Dr. Wilkinson has been teaching at the Institute since 1980, and she was awarded the Institute's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1987. She has published two books: Medea's Folly: Women's Relationships and the Search for Intimacy (1998), and Persephone Returns: Victims, Heroes and the Journey from the Underworld (1996).

Dr. Wilkinson has contributed chapters and articles to anthologies and journals on various topics, most recently Dreams and Shamanism. She is an exhibiting fine artist and is currently completing a book focused on artist's dreams.

Adjunct Faculty

Carolina Bacchi, PsyD
Ann Bernhardt, PhD
Andrew Bertagnoli, PhD
Lani Chow, PhD
Christopher Dryer, PhD
Todd Finnemore, PsyD
Charles Flinton, PhD
Mark Fromm, PhD
Alessandro Gagliardi, PhD
Alan Kubler, PhD
John Lundin, PsyD
Gordon McCarter, PhD
Ryan McKim, PsyD
Patrick Miles, PhD
Ron Pilato, PsyD
Simon Tan, PhD, ABPP
Tamas Makany, PhD