PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Licensed Psychotherapist Private Practice, MFC # 46883, San Fernando Valley, Burbank

  • My training in psychotherapy and counseling skills allows me to be highly attuned and sensitive when guiding individuals to explore their experience of the past.

Video Portrait, Family History & Guided Autobiography Producer

  • Made video portraits for individuals & their families
  • Assisted adults and elderly individuals to reminisce, write, document and share their life & family story in different media.
  • Compiled written narratives, artwork, family photos, photo-collages, scrapbooks, mementos, audio interviews, and vintage home movies into customized personal and family history videos & DVDs.
  • Designed personal websites.
  • Launched a Life History Class Website for the Freda Mohr Jewish Community Organization on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles.
  • Directed and edited a personal documentary about a Holocaust survivor: Fuehrerin, ich folge Dir nicht! (Ms-Leader, I follow you not!)

ACADEMIC EDUCATION

University of California, Los Angeles
Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Television Studies, 2001

Dissertation: “The Shadow of the Object: Mourning and Melancholia in Autobiographical Film and Video about the Holocaust” - a psychoanalytic study of the filmic representation of personal memories about the Holocaust made by survivors and the Second Generation.

My dissertation about the autobiographical audio-visual representation of the Holocaust has been motivated by my ongoing desire to come to terms with my cultural background. As a postwar German citizen having grown up with the burden of a collective guilt inherited from the Nazi crimes, I have been preoccupied with questions as to how ordinary citizens willingly collaborated with Hitler's totalitarian regime.
Indeed watching these cinematic testimonies filled me with empathy for the victims and their children and a wish to help them - and by extension others - to work through devastating traumatic memories. Moreover my deep friendship with Fred Klein, a Holocaust survivor motivated me to become a psychotherapist.

University of California, Los Angeles
Master of Arts in Film and Television Studies, 1994

University of California, Los Angeles
Bachelor of Arts in Film Production, summa cum laude, 1992


CLINICAL EDUCATION

California Graduate Institute, Los Angeles
Master of Arts in Marital and Family Therapy, 2004

The Psychoanalytic Center of Los Angeles 
Intensive Course in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 2005-06

Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies 
Certificate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 2002

University of California, Los Angeles, Extension
Guided Autobiography - Telling your Life Story, 2001
Technique of Life Review & Reminiscence Therapy for the Elderly
James Birren, Ph.D. UCLA Center of Aging

 

POSTDOCTORAL TRAINING & WORKSHOPS

Alliant International University, Los Angeles
Career Counseling - Career Development Theories & Techniques, 2012

Against the Stream Buddhist Mediation Society, Los Angeles
Meditation Interventions for the Addiction Process, 2011

UCLA Gambling Studies Program & California Office of Problem Gambling & Beit T'Shuvah
Training Program for Treatment Services Providers, 2011

Insight LA, Santa Monica
Mindfulness for Psychotherapists, 2010

Pacific Gestalt Institute, Westwood
Gestalt Therapy Workshop, 2009

Against the Stream Buddhist Mediation Society, Los Angeles
Mindfulness Meditation Class, 2008

The Psychoanalytic Center of Los Angeles 
Intensive Course in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 2005-06

Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies 
Certificate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 2002

University of California, Los Angeles, Extension
Guided Autobiography - Telling your Life Story, 2001
Technique of Life Review & Reminiscence Therapy for the Elderly
James Birren, Ph.D. UCLA Center of Aging

 
 
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michaela@michaelatork.com