About Kenneth A. Frank, Ph.D.

“For decades—longer than many of my patients have been alive—I’ve been exploring what makes people who they are and how they can change. The years have tempered that search, giving it perspective. I’ve been made wiser by age—not because age answers questions, but because it deepens the questions worth asking.”
― Kenneth Frank, 2025

Psychotherapy still feels new to me each day—an unfolding dialogue full of possibility. I’m drawn to helping people find meaning, move through obstacles, and discover new ways of being. Real change doesn’t come from technique alone; it grows in relationships that invite trust, curiosity, and authentic contact. Therapy, for me, is a living human encounter—grounded in warmth, respect, humor, and surprise.

My Integrative Approach

I call myself an Integrative Psychoanalyst. Over the years I’ve studied many schools of psychology and psychotherapy, each illuminating a different facet of how people think, feel, and grow.

Our minds are complex and astonishing—continually processing sensations, emotions, and meanings while integrating the gestures, words, and intentions of others. These capacities, revealed ever more clearly by neuroscience, form the basis of change. My work draws on what each discipline does best, blending science and imagination to foster enduring transformation.

Experience and Credentials

I earned my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Columbia University, where I was awarded a U.S. Public Health Service Fellowship recognizing exceptional promise in clinical research and training, and later became Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. I’m a certified psychoanalyst, having completed a four-year postgraduate training in psychoanalysis. Earlier, I graduated with Special Honors in Psychology from New York University, receiving the Department Prize for Outstanding Achievement, the program’s highest distinction at graduation.

I’ve treated patients, taught, and supervised at Columbia–Presbyterian Medical Center, the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and other leading institutions. To date, I’ve published more than sixty professional articles and books on how people change and how therapy works.

Licensed in Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York,  I work primarily online with patients across the country while continuing to see several in person. I also consult with therapists and executives and serve on the Board and faculty of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP) in New York.

Ongoing Work

I have several papers forthcoming in 2026 and am currently writing a book that brings together contemporary approaches to psychological change. It traces how an integrative way of working—rooted in psychoanalysis yet enriched by other schools of therapy—has evolved from a once-controversial stance into a vital, mainstream force in the helping professions.

What draws me still is the aliveness of human change—the creative, often surprising ways we rediscover vitality, flexibility, and hope. At its best, psychotherapy isn’t about fixed answers; it’s about discovery—of ways to live, to connect, and to imagine ourselves into the future.