Jessica Broitman Ph.D.

Jessica Broitman, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst who has been practicing in Berkeley since 1980. She began her career in Boulder, Colorado, as a member of the Intensive Treatment Team of the Boulder Mental Health Center; she ran the Gordon Beyer project, one of the first residential treatment programs in the U.S. for young people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. After moving to California, she became the Program Coordinator for the Creative Living Center, a day treatment program for adults with mental illness. She formalized the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group as a nonprofit organization and is its President Emerita. She was instrumental in the initiation of SFPRG’s Psychotherapy Training Center and Clinic and served as Executive Director for 15 years. In 2017, she helped create the International Control Mastery Therapy Center and currently serves as President. She frequently lectures on Control Mastery Theory worldwide. She is a graduate of The San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis.

Dr. Broitman has been involved in researching and treating children with nonverbal learning disabilities and their families for more than 25 years. She has co-authored numerous chapters and articles on the topic, as well as five books for practitioners and parents, including Nonverbal Learning Disabilities in Children: Bridging the Gap Between Science and Practice (2011), Treating NVLD in Children (2013), and NVLD and Developmental Visual-Spatial Disorder in Children (2020). Learning Disorders Across the Lifespan: A Mental Health Framework is scheduled for publication in 2023. She is on the board of the NVLD Project, currently sponsoring research into the treatment and understanding of NVLD. Dr. Broitman has a special interest in helping professionals and families understand and treat the disorder.