Professional History

Dr. Michael J. Diamond received his Ph.D. from Stanford University where his graduate training was in both social-personality and clinical psychology. His primary graduate school interests and research were in the areas of social issues and attitude change, community social psychology, existential-humanistic and behavioral psychology, and hypnosis and altered states of consciousness. During that time, he completed a one-year pre-doctoral fellowship in clinical psychology at the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Hospital along with additional practica training at Stanford University's Counseling & Testing Center.

 

After completing his doctorate, he began his professional career as an academic clinical psychologist, spending the next four years as an Assistant Professor of Psychology in both Clinical and Social Psychology at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu (Manoa), Hawaii where he also developed his research laboratory in Consciousness and Cognitive Behavior. His areas of study included psychotherapy, group process and therapy, applied social psychology, hypnosis and consciousness, and cross-cultural psychology. He was awarded the University of Hawaii's Regents Medal for his undergraduate teaching. He also served two semesters on the teaching faculty of the Semester-at-Sea Program teaching undergraduate students while traveling in a residential ship program around the world under the auspices of Chapman College and the University of Colorado.

 

He spent the next couple of years primarily doing community clinical psychology work in Santa Fe, New Mexico (as well as living in Guadalajara, Mexico). Dr. Diamond then relocated to Southern California and commenced his career as a full-time clinician. He began a private practice in psychotherapy as well as group and couples therapy; became an Assistant (and then Associate) Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA; served as a clinical consultant in business as well as forensic psychology; and began teaching clinical psychology courses in a number of graduate departments throughout the area. He also served as President of the American Psychological Association's Division 30 (Hypnosis).

 

Dr. Diamond next sought additional training and expertise in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. He initially completed a two-year postdoctoral training program at the Wright Institute Los Angeles. Two years later, he began his formal psychoanalytic training at the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies where he received his certification as a psychoanalyst. He subsequently began teaching at the Wright Institute and the Los Angeles Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies (in addition to teaching other analytically oriented students and professionals in local and national settings). He became a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies as well as a supervisor at the Wright Institute. His psychoanalytic research and writing has been focused primarily in the areas of psychoanalytic issues and technique, the psychoanalytic treatment of early childhood trauma and dissociation, psychoanalytic gender theory, and fathering, male development and masculinity.

 

Currently, Dr. Diamond continues practicing psychoanalysis as well as psychotherapy and couples therapy in Los Angeles, CA. He also does occasional consulting in the area of family business, forensic issues, and father-son relations. He actively participates as a Training and Supervising Analyst as well as Faculty member at the Los Angeles Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies, and is on the Teaching and Supervising Faculty of the Wright Institute Los Angeles. He is a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the International Psychoanalytic Association, and is a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and prizes for his scholarly writing and was recently named the Distinguished Psychoanalyst of the Year from the Institute For Psychoanalytic Training and Research in New York.