Bio

Laurie Hollman, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst with specialized clinical training in infant-parent, child, adolescent and adult psychotherapy, a unique practice that covers the life span. She is an expert on mental disorders such as how the Narcissistic Personality Disorder impacts both the narcissist and family members including children and marital couples. With this expertise in normal and pathological development, she is particularly adept at empathically guiding couples to build strong relationships, as well as, helping parents and children relate well together in today’s complex family environment. This sensibility helps adults, children, and adolescents understand their own emotional experiences while simultaneously being receptive to others’ points of view.

Dr. Hollman’s training in infant-parent psychotherapy was done at the Anni Bergman Parent-Infant Training Program in NYC affiliated with the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research and the Contemporary Freudian Society. She has worked with adolescent mothers, battered women, mothers with autistic children, alcoholic mothers and their babies.

She received specialized training in child and adolescent treatment at New York University. Her Ph.D. dissertation on nine-year-old girls culminated in a new finding and major contribution to the psychology of this age group focusing on troubling fantasies with which these children struggle. She was invited to join the faculty of New York University before graduating and taught clinical courses on listening to unconscious fantasies, child psychotherapy, and understanding the art work of children.

Dr. Hollman’s training in the psychoanalysis of adults was done at The Society for Psychoanalytic Study and Research where she became the youngest graduate to join the faculty and Board of Directors and later became president. She taught courses on narcissistic and borderline personality disorders as well as art therapy for children.

Dr. Hollman has studied with world-renowned figures such as psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr. Jacob Arlow, psychologist and child researcher Dr. Anni Bergman, and psychologist and infant researcher, Dr. Beatrice Beebe.

Dr. Hollman is widely published on topics relevant to parents and children such as juried articles and chapters in the international Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, The International Journal of Infant Observation, and the Inner World of the Mother. She wrote on subjects relevant to parents of divorce for the Family Law Review, a publication of the New York Bar Association. As a columnist for Newsday’s Parent and Children Magazine and the Long Island Parent for almost a decade, she has written numerous articles on parenting and child development. Dr. Hollman has also written for Moms Magazine with her column, “Parental Intelligence,” has multiple blogs posted for Huffington Post and contributes to Thrive Global, Active Family Magazine (San Francisco),Good Housekeeping and Bustle Lifestyle. Further, she is a guest writer for parenting websites such as UpJourney, Natural Parents Network, Our Parenting Spot, and Positive Parenting Ally.  In addition, she writes articles on mental illness for Long Island pediatricians, internists and gynecologists/obstetricians, and for Long Island schools, discussing issues relevant to educators and mental health counselors, including ADHD, the gifted child, depression and anxiety in children and adolescents.

In addition to being on the faculties of New York University and the Society for Psychoanalytic Study and Research, she has also been on the faculties of Long Island University, and the Long Island Institute of Psychoanalysis where she has taught postgraduate clinical courses on adult and child psychotherapy and mental disorders.

Dr. Hollman’s teaching, writing and research have given her opportunities to share her knowledge about topics that inspire and fascinate her: emotional regulation, how the mind works (in infants, children, adolescents and adults), modern parenting, secure attachments, listening to the unconscious, attachment styles, narcissism, and the meanings behind behavior.

Earlier in her life, Dr. Hollman was an elementary school teacher with a background in research in educational psychology, where she pioneered “individualized instruction” in the classroom. This skill-based approach to assessing children rather than the ambiguous global grading system (A, B, C, D) common then, was new in the late 1970s and 1980s. For example, she taught a “second-third grade” integrated classroom focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of each child, where children learned to help each other learn. She also initiated teaching children with learning disabilities. Her approaches, common today, were new at the time, conceived and developed by Dr. Hollman specifically to help revitalize a very traditional school system. She fostered distinctive relationships with hard-to-reach children and inspired their parents to do the same. Even then, she had a relationship-based teaching style that reached a broad spectrum of children