Survey Response: Sharon Farber, PhD

Degrees/Licenses Held: Ph.D. in clinical social work, LCSW in NY and CT

Contact Information: (914) 478-1924 Sharonkfarber@gmail.com

Number of years in practice: 37

Number of years in practice with patients who have TMS: 34

Number of patients you have seen who have had TMS: 60

What is your association to the TMS community?

Early in my career I worked at the Rusk Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University Medical Center, where I worked with patients with physical problems with a large psychosomatic component, including TMS. At the time, there was no rmedical recognition of such problems. This was before I became aware of Dr. Sarno's interest.

Have you ever suffered from TMS? No.

Are you able to conduct therapy sessions over the phone? Perhaps. It depends on a number of factors.

What insurance plans do you currently accept?

AETNA, HIP, GHI, Emblem Health Services, POMCO, SWSCHP, Beech Street.

Do you have a sliding scale of payment for people who are not covered by insurance? Yes.

What have you done to educate yourself about TMS, and what plans do you have for further education about TMS?

My psychoanalytic training has been an excellent education. So have Dr. Sarno's books. My doctoral dissertation involved a psychosomatic phenomenon, and was the stimulus for my book, When the Body Is the Target: Self-Ham, Pain, and Traumatic Attachments.

As we are going to post your answers on the TMS Wiki, feel free to write some text to introduce yourself:

Psychotherapy is above all a human relationship. Basic to any psychotherapy is a beginning sense of comfort in the relationship with your therapist. I am honored to listen to the stories people tell about their lives. As the story unfolds, I can provide a different way of looking at it, a new and different perspective that can help you create a new and better life story.

I am a Board Certified Diplomate in Clinical Social Work, licensed in New York and Connecticut. I maintains a private practice in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis with children, adolescents, and adults in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. I have successfully treated numerous patients with very real physical problems for which physicians have found no real medical cause, psychosomatic or mind/body problems. I have also treated patients whose mediacal symptoms have an organic basis but a considerable psychosomatic component as well. I have successfully treated patients with back pain, neck pain, asthma, allergies, acid reflux, eating disorders, self-injury.

I have published a book on bodily self-harm, including eating disorders, self-mutilation, and compulsive body percing and tattooing, as well as a number of journal articles on bodily self-harm and other subjects. My book is When the Body Is the Target: Self-Ham, Pain, and Traumatic Attachments. My second book, Hungry for Ecstatic Experience will be published in 2011.

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