Overview of Services

I provide Jungian analysis, depth psychotherapy, and marriage and family therapy. I am passionate about my work as a Jungian analyst, child and adolescent, couples, and individual adult psychotherapist. I enjoy seeing patients get better, mature, and transform over time. I began my studies in Jungian psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1978, where I taught Jung’s theories of dream interpretation and led dream groups to classes of 100 students between 1980-1982. I received my bachelor's degree in Depth Psychology and Religion from UCSC.  I then earned my master’s degree at John F. Kennedy University in clinical psychology in 1987 and my Ph.D. in 1994. I did my internship at Lincoln Child Center in Oakland and worked there for eleven years. I was licensed as a Marriage, Family and Child Counselor in 1988. I have been in private practice for over thirty years and have specialized in work with children and adolescents, individual adults, and couples. I have a multi-ethnic practice and have worked for many years with individuals of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. I am a member of the IAAP and an analyst member of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. I work in-depth with trauma-related disorders, analysis of dreams, the symbolic life, and active imagination. 

Location

My office is located in a beautiful setting in Montclair Village, with a view of the Oakland hills, greenery, and trees that can be seen through my window. I have comfortable furniture and a clean interior. I work with both short-term and long-term patients.  

Jungian Analysis and Psychotherapy

At Steven Herrmann, Ph.D., MFT, Jungian Analysis and Psychotherapy, I help patients reduce depression and relieve anxiety by focusing on behavioral, emotional, and relational problems and I look at problems from a depth psychological point of view, with a focus on the inner voice, calling, or vocation. One of the basic principles of Jungian analysis is that neurosis is a defense against the creative urge or the will to create. Therefore, helping patients become more creative and motivated in their work is a primary goal of treatment. I am an MFT with a focus on early adulthood, mid-life transition, individual, child, marriage, couples and family-oriented psychotherapy. I work with issues of job dissatisfaction, loss, and bereavement. I bring to my general practice a focus on typical mental health and emotional disorders from childhood to full maturity. One of my goals in Jungian analysis is helping people clarify their vocational choices and examining the meaning of dreams. In addition, I have experience working with gay & lesbian patients. As a Jungian analyst practicing in Montclair, Oakland, in the East Bay, I work with vocational and relational issues via dream work and Journal methods. 

Couples Therapy

Are you looking to achieve better communication in your relationship? Are you wondering why you can no longer speak effectively with the person you fell in love with? Would you like to outgrow dysfunctional patterns of communication and make room for change? If you are seeking to understand why your relationships no longer work and want to learn how to create lasting friendship, I may be of assistance to you. I am a Jungian psychotherapist who has been helping couples create more satisfying relationships and discover meaning in life. Improving communication patterns solves many of life’s problems. I assist couples in achieving better communication skills to arrive at a better understanding of who each person is and how to be more fully oneself. As a psychotherapist, I explore with patients the underlying psychodynamic issues that are causing problems in arriving at mutual understanding. Being understood better means being open to the meaning of complicated emotional patterns, or affect-complexes, which stem from one’s family of origin. 

Child Psychotherapy 

I specialize with children between the ages of 4-12 and I also see adolescents. I treat school and learning problems, PTSD, insecure attachments, abandonment trauma, anxiety, social, sleep, oppositional-defiant, and relational disorders. I work with adoptions, parental separation, divorce, dreams, nightmares, neglect and abuse. The methods I use as a child psychotherapist include sandplay and play therapy which are effective tools in working with emotional problems in children. I work closely with the child and family, always involving parents in the child's treatment goals and initial sessions. 

Dream Work  

Helping patient's find out what dreams mean across the course of an analysis is key to my work. Oftentimes the discovery of a patient's dream language requires the careful keeping of a dream journal. Dreams tend towards a goal. Sometimes their meaning may be vocationally oriented. By paying frequent attention to dreams across many months, a patient may become better attuned to the messages of their authentic Self. Keeping a daily dream log is a way to live a symbolic existence in the Now. A symbolic life forms a central way on our path towards wholeness. When we live a symbolic life the meaninglessness of existence may be transformed into meaning, neurotic symptoms may be significantly minimized, and one may begin to experience true joy and increased relatedness. As a Jungian analyst, I recommend the keeping a dream journal, as reflecting on the meaning of dreams is a way psychological complexes and conflicts can be made conscious in a way that a rational analysis sometimes can't reach. Understanding a patient’s dream language can be a vehicle for better understanding career conflicts and interpersonal problems in relationships, whether in adolescence, early adulthood or at mid-life and beyond.