Welcome to the world of VCCC!

As a psychologist and psychoanalyst, I’m in my third career. Each of my careers has gradually morphed into the next. The common theme has been human development—spiritual, educational, and psychological. In my first career I was an Episcopal priest who was dedicated to community organizing. I was so good at community organizing that I organized my way out of the church and into founding a large educational nonprofit named Camino Nuevo Charter Academy. That was my second career—nonprofit executive—but a neurotic one! I needed a good therapist and I found one. Voila! I was smitten with psychoanalysis and on my way to a third career.

My first therapist was not a psychoanalyst, but he was an intellectual who was keenly interested in Jung, Freud, and Klein. I saw him two or three days per week for 12 years. That was my first analysis. During that time, I became involved with a group of gay psychologists, some of whom had been activists in the late 1970’s with the Radical Faeries. They were intent upon founding a new psychoanalytic institute—a “gay-centered” psychoanalytic institute. I was intrigued by this project for several years but ultimately decided that it wasn’t theoretically coherent, so I sought out a more traditional institute. I chose the Psychoanalytic Center of California because I had come to appreciate the oeuvre of the London Kleinians while I was training at VCCC.

Now I work in full-time private practice in West Hollywood. I employ four associates—pre-licensed clinicians. I also supervise one intern from VCCC. Working as a supervisor feels similar to the way that I work with patients. I listen to what they tell me, I ask questions, and I make observations. Sometimes I share my countertransference experience—with my patients as well as with my supervisees. I offer my countertransference as data that either tells us something about the patient or about me. In either case it’s useful because I consider analytic sessions to be highly intersubjective events. It’s not always clear about who’s most responsible for the developments in the analytic field. I believe that analysis is more of a two-way street in terms of the bidirectionality of influence than I believed when I first began my career.

I have always been interested in comparative psychoanalysis. I believe that it’s useful to be familiar with many schools of psychoanalysis because the best way forward is often a dialectical approach, meaning holding contrasting perspectives in mind simultaneously. For example, I try hard to create a space with my patients for their “baby self” to become known and addressed, as well as for their adult self to be engaged. I believe that a good psychoanalytic experience allows for patients to have periods of regression to early “primitive” states but also to untangle “grown up” interpersonal dynamics that entail inevitable enactments involving the intersection of therapist-patient subjectivities that can only be clarified post-enactment when both parties are able to emerge from the fog of unwitting interpersonal events. This dialectical perspective foregrounds the analytic field between the patient and the therapist as much as the isolated psyche of the patient. The analytic effort to honor early developmental experiences along with attention to the here-and-now developments arising from the interaction between the subjectivities of therapist and patient is a collaboration by two participants, one of whom holds a special responsibility for observing.

My favorite psychoanalytic quote is by an interpersonal psychoanalyst name Edgar Levenson: “The power of psychoanalysis may well depend on what is said about what is done as a continuous, integral part of the therapy.” When I find myself working this way on a regular basis with a patient, I know that we have entered a psychoanalytic process, regardless of whether they are coming once per week or more often."

Alumni Corner:

Bonnie Levy Wargo, MFT

We want to catch up with a VCCC alum every newsletter and see what they are up to! This time we have Bonnie Levy Wargo, MFT, who recently came back to VCCC to give a talk on professional development after licensure.

Bonnie Levy Wargo, MFT is currently licensed in California and Pennsylvania and practices psychotherapy virtually from Pittsburgh, PA. After training with VCCC from 2017 to 2019, she began her private practice in Downtown LA. In March 2020 she moved to a completely virtual practice. After living in Los Angeles since 2004 (with a one year hiatus in Sydney, Australia when she worked for BuzzFeed), she moved to Pittsburgh in 2022 to enjoy a slower pace and new perspectives. Pittsburgh offers her the chance to enjoy all four seasons (learning to ski has been fun!) and be part of a charming, family-centered community. While in Pittsburgh she continues to stay engaged with the psychoanalytic community by participating in virtual case conferences with the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (along with therapists from all over the country) and through an in-person monthly meeting with therapists as part of The Western Pennsylvania Community for Psychoanalytic Therapies.

Her therapy practice focuses on those experiencing relationship or career paralysis, despite craving more connection and having great ideas. Bonnie is also interested in issues relating to intimacy, pregnancy, parenting, and procrastination. Outside of therapy work, Bonnie bakes weekly (and fondly remembers Callae’s coconut cake - ask her to make it for the next party!) and loves exploring the world with her husband and young daughter. Bonnie dreams of hosting a virtual dance-a-thon for therapists or finding other unique, playful ways for therapists to regularly connect.

She plans to begin supervising California therapists in the next year and plans to explore the idea of opening an in-person (possibly group) practice in Pittsburgh in the future.

To connect with her or read more about her practice, click the link below: