Paula Smith-Marder, PhD

I am a Jungian analyst, a member of the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, and a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in Westwood. I work with adults of all ages. I also work with couples to help them deepen their understanding of each other, communicate better, and reach greater maturity through relationship.

Specialties include Jungian analysis, Jungian psychotherapy, an in-depth approach to personal concerns, working with dreams, treatment of depression, anxiety, and adjustment disorders, integrating painful experiences from the past, psychological issues related to pregnancy, postpartum symptoms, parenting and grandparenting, and making one’s way through transitional stages in life.

Serious transitions in life include graduation, career changes, loss of a relationship, engagement, marriage, pregnancy, giving birth, becoming parents, aging, menopause, and the end of life. These and other initiations often bring inner and outer upheavals that in time may lead one to a greater sense of purpose and of self.

I have given talks at UCLA, the West Los Angeles VA Hospital, and the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles. Topics include Parenting Issues, Dreams of Animals, (especially the pig, the rat, and the turtle), Madonna of Dark Matter: Mary in Contemporary Culture, Women’s Dreams during Menstruation, Pregnancy, and Menopause, Shadow and Complexes in Jungian Psychology, and The Red Book by C.G. Jung. For over ten years I was on the volunteer faculty at the Semel Institute at UCLA in The Women’s Life Center.

Doctoral Dissertation:  Dreams of Adolescent and Mature Women during Menstruation

Personal Interests: Jungian Psychology, Piano, Oil Painting, Literature, World Events, Issues of Body and Soul.

Background: M.A.in English from California State University in Los Angeles, M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from California School of Professional Psychology (Alliant University), Jungian Analyst, Certified by the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles where I was Director of Training for many years, teacher of fifth through seventh grades before becoming a psychologist. I am married with one daughter and two young grandchildren.

Psychology License: PSY6560 since 1980.  Member of International Association of Analytical Psychology, Council of North American Societies of Jungian Analysts, American Psychological Association, California Psychological Association, Los Angeles County Psychological Association.

 Everything good is costly, and the development of personality is one of the most costly of all things. It is a matter of saying yea to oneself, of taking oneself as the most serious of tasks, of being conscious of everything one does, and keeping it constantly before one’s eyes in all its dubious aspects — truly a task that taxes us to the utmost.

C.G. Jung   Vol. 13, p. 18