Oded R. Shezifi, Psy.D., RPT-S

Welcome to my website.  I am a licensed psychologist (PSY 21162) and a play therapist-supervisor (RPT-S) with over 20 years of experience in the mental health field.  I work with adults providing them with individual, couples, and family psychotherapy.  I also work with children on modifying maladaptive behaviors.  As a clinician, my working style enhances generating insights and modifying behavioral patterns in a respectful manner.  The goal of my collaborative work with my patients is to help them get better at regulating their emotions and increase their overall adaptation to their life situations by making them more responsive and less reactive to life's stressors.  In addition to therapy, I teach at UCSD-Extension and offer supervision to therapists-in-training. 

My former experiences are varied and include serving as a medic and an aviation physiology instructor at the IAF, working as a psychotherapist, a clinical lead and an interns' supervisor at Jewish Family Service of San Diego, working with children diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy, providing school-based counseling at elementary and middle schools, working with college students at Cal. State San Marcos, working at a psychiatric crisis residential treatment center, and evaluating the cognitive, emotional, and social development of preschoolers.

I graduated cum laude from Haifa University with a bachelor's degree and moved to San Diego to complete my graduate studies in 1998.

I hold a doctorate in clinical psychology with psychodynamic emphasis (California School of Professional Psychology, 2004) and postdoctoral certificates in play therapy (UC San Diego - Extension, 2006), psychoanalytic psychotherapy (Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 2009), and Jewish mindfulness meditation (Institute of Jewish Spirituality, 2017).  I have been licensed in California since 2006 and I am a member of the Association for Play Therapy (APT).