Multi-Modal Psychotherapy Research
Current Graduate Students
Gabrielle is currently a fifth-year doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology PsyD program at Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University. She earned her M.A. in the field of Clinical Psychology from Teacher’s College, Columbia University. Her research and clinical interests include understanding the ways that trauma and early relationship patterns impact psychological development and engagement in high-risk behaviors, including disordered eating and self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. Gabrielle is currently conducting a scoping systematic review of existing trauma measures with the aim of providing a comprehensive account of the various ways trauma is currently defined and measured. In her free time, Gabrielle enjoys exercising, spending time with her dog, and theater.
Bret is a fifth-year doctoral student at Ferkauf and has been a member of the Multi-modal Psychotherapy Research Lab since January of 2019. At present, Bret is seeing patients at both the Parnes Clinic, where he provides treatment from a psychodynamic orientation, and Gouverneur Hospital, where he provides treatment from an interpersonal/third-wave orientation. Bret's interests include psychodynamic theory, third-wave treatment approaches, neuroscience, and personality assessment. Following Bret's interest in personality assessment, he is conducting a systematic review of the literature surrounding the use of the Rorschach as a measurement of treatment outcome.
Bret Boatwright
Gabrielle Tolchin
Zoë Is a fourth-year member of the Multi-modal Psychotherapy Research Lab. Her academic interests include Regulation Focused Psychotherapies with children and adolescents. She is excited to potentially grow her knowledge on this topic in her RP1. She is starting her externship at Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center where she will be able to work with this population and explore the realm of assessment. In her free time, Zoë enjoys to going to the gym, exploring new NYC restaurants, and watching scary movies.
Dan Gutterman
Dan is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology PsyD program at Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology. He wrote his RPI on the subject of psychotherapy and creativity, and how the two constructs may be related. Dan is currently an extern at NYU Postdoctoral program in Psychoanalysis. He has also externed at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies and the Pratt Institute, as well as participating in a fellowship at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. In his free time, Dan enjoys hiking with his dog and cooking.
Zoë Bressler
Jessica Silverman
Jess is a fourth year member of the Multi-modal Psychotherapy Research Lab. She has a wide range of academic interests, including therapeutic treatment for severe mental illness and mood disorders. Her RP1 was a systematic review of the observed relationship between coping and defensive functioning. Jess is currently externing at Jamaica Hospital’s Inpatient Psychiatric Unit in Queens, providing individual psychotherapy to adults in an inpatient setting. In her free time she enjoys comedy, reading, and crossword puzzles.
Elaine Hunter
Siyu Liu
Charlotte Standefer
Julie Svigals
Shira Levy
Barry grew up in Oceanside, New York. He was the original member of Dr. Aafjes-van Doorn's lab after she joined the Ferkauf faculty. Barry currently lives in Passaic, New Jersey. While he considers his psychotherapy orientation to be cognitive behavioral, he appreciates the important contributions that psychodynamic psychotherapy has made to understanding the human mind. Barry interned at the Center for Anxiety in Brooklyn, New York. Barry’s broad research interest involves studying religion as a variable in psychotherapy, a topic to which he devoted his RP1. His RP2 explores the effect that a therapist's religion might play in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder with religious themes.
Barry Eichenbaum
Samantha Mahr
Past Graduate Students
Nathan Krantz
Ayden Ferstenberg
Ayden Ferstenberg is a recent graduate from the Adult Clinical PsyD Program at Ferkauf. She received her BA from Stern College with a double major in Psychology and Sociology and a minor in English. She is currently on internship at Jacobi Medical Center. Her research interests stem from two of her longstanding passions: acting and fencing. After observing anecdotally how much information is communicated through the subtext of these two activities, she sought further information on the science behind the communication, the ways in which people learn how to talk without their voice, and how such can be used to strengthen bonds or promote deception. Her Master’s thesis proposed a transdiagnostic developmental model for understanding communication difficulties in dyslexia and schizophrenia, exploring parallels between the underlying deficits and how these issues disrupt paralinguistic knowledge. For her research, she collaborated on an experimental study that expands our understanding of the relationship between nonverbal sensitivity and interpersonal effectiveness by clarifying skills that enhance patient outcome. Ayden’s other research interests include linguistic analysis, defense mechanisms, emotion and emotion regulation, deception detection, transdiagnostic variables, process research, and integration of different therapeutic models. In her spare time, Ayden enjoys reading, writing, and spending time with her family.
Julia Kurtz
Julia Kurtz is a recent graduate from the Adult Clinical PsyD Program at Ferkauf. She received her BA from Colgate University with a major in Psychology and a minor in Sociology. She is currently on Internship at the Brooklyn VA. In the past Julia externed at the Brooklyn VA, Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, and Bellevue Hospital. Her interests include working psychodynamically with individuals who have PTSD, substance use disorders, and interpersonal difficulties. For her research, Julia studied the mechanisms of change behind Regulation Focused Psychotherapy for Children, a novel psychodynamic treatment for children with disruptive behavior disorders. In her spare time, Julia enjoys reading, writing, and spending time with her family.
Nicole Weishoff is a recent graduate from Ferkauf. She transferred from Dr. Kate Walsh's lab where she wrote her RP1 on the psychological risk factors and outcomes of sex trafficking on an individual, interpersonal, and broad social level. Clinical interests include working with women, children, and families impacted by traumatic events such as domestic violence, substance abuse, poverty, and homelessness. Nicole has experience working with Dr. Tracy Prout's research in the school-child program, which focuses on implementing Regulation Focused Psychotherapy for Children (RFP-C), a psychodynamic intervention for children who meet criteria for oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). She worked on their team as a study therapist for two years implementing the treatment, and focused her RP2 on adherence to the RFP-C manual, and how adherence may impact treatment outcome.
Nicole Weishoff
Nofar Yaacoby
Nofar is a recent graduate from the Clinical PsyD program at Ferkauf Graduate School. She completed her undergraduate studies in Psychology and American Studies at Tel Aviv University in Israel. Nofar is currently an intern at Mount Sinai Elmhurst hospital working on a variety of rotations including inpatient and outpatient. She externed at a psychoanalytic institute, inpatient hospital, and college counseling center. Nofar also worked at FOCUS Children's Therapy Center as the General Manager for four years, running social skills groups, seeing patients individually, and conducting assessments. Her passion is providing psychodynamic therapy to patients with anxiety, trauma, and interpersonal difficulties. Nofar's research focus was on body movement and gaining a deeper understanding into the nonverbals of psychotherapy. Nofar is also interested in the therapeutic processes and how they relate to therapist/patient cultural differences in her research work.
Imri Zalman
Imri is a recent graduate from the Clinical PsyD program. He completed his undergraduate studies in Psychology and Law at the Hebrew University in Israel and joined Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology to pursue his advanced studies in Clinical Psychology. Imri is currently a psychology intern at Yale University/Connecticut Mental Health Center, where he works with individuals who struggle with severe mental illness. He works intensively with people diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Imri has a great interest in psychoanalytic theories and their implementation in practice. He practiced in various settings, including a research clinic, a psychoanalytic society, inpatient units, and outpatient clinics. Imri is also involved in research. His dissertation focused on narcissism and treatment retention, which aimed at understanding how clinicians can engage individuals with high narcissistic traits in treatment.
Samantha is a recent graduate from the Clinical PsyD program. She completed her undergraduate studies in Communication at the University of Connecticut and her MS in Counseling from Fordham University. She is currently a psychology intern at North Central Bronx hospital where she works in an inpatient setting treating patients with severe and persistent mental illness. Samantha is passionate about psychoanalytic psychotherapy and has trained at Brooklyn College Personal Counseling Program and The National Institute for the Psychotherapies. Samantha’s research efforts have focused upon the use of the couch in psychotherapy. Her RP1 was the first comprehensive and systematic review of the effect of the couch in psychotherapy. Her RP2 evaluated how psychoanalytic process differs between chair and couch sessions as identified by observer-coders on the Psychotherapy Process Q Set, a 100-item instrument intended to offer a meaningful and theoretically neutral index of the therapeutic process (PQS; Jones, 2000).
