About Dr. Renee Garfinkel...
Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D.
• Member, American Academy of Sleep Medicine
• Member, American Psychological Association
• Licensed Clinical Psychologist
• Listed in Who's Who of American Women
Early in my career, a patient I was treating made a remarkable and dramatic recovery from physical symptoms she had been suffering most of her adult life.* What I took away from that case was a career-long commitment to working with the psychological aspects of the body's experience.
Since then, I've treated patients who have had a variety of stubborn and troubling physical symptoms. These include people with chronic pain, with medical illness or injury, and people with physical symptoms their physicians cannot explain. Insomnia and other sleep disorders fall naturally within this group.
I earned my Ph.D. at Lund University in Sweden, and worked for several years at a busy New York City hospital and at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, before moving to Washington, D.C. where I am in private practice and am affiliated with the Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management, the George Washington University.
In addition to membership in the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American Psychological Association, I am certified in the use of hypnosis and a range of other mind-body psychological techniques relevant to the treatment of sleep disorders.
* Garfinkel, R., "The Treatment of Psychosomatic Ailments in the Elderly". Psychosomatics, 1980, 21, 1015-16.
