Alexis Tomarken, MSW, PhD, Joins the AMHF Advisory Board


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Alexis Tomarken, MSW, PhD

The American Mental Health Foundation is delighted to announce Alexis Tomarken, MSW, PhD, has joined its professional advisory board.

Dr. Tomarken is a psychologist in private practice in New York City and a supervisor in the clinical-psychology doctoral program at Long Island University (LIU).

Over recent years, Dr. Tomarken has trained as a psychoanalytic candidate in the Postdoctoral Program of New York University, where she is also a member of its relational-executive committee.

Early in her career, Dr. Tomarken assisted and managed clinical-research protocols in psycho-oncology as a clinical social worker and a psychology-doctoral student. She holds her MSW from NYU and PhD from the aforementioned LIU, with a post-MSW fellowship from Yale Psychiatric Institute.

Dr. Tomarken has taught at Hunter College and LIU, in both the undergraduate and graduate departments.

Dr. Tomarken assisted and managed clinical-research protocols in psycho-oncology, as a clinical social worker and a psychology-doctoral student, at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center department of psychiatry. Her dissertation proposal there, on the factors that contribute to young-spousal traumatic grief, the kind that time does not heal, including work with Jimmie C. Holland, MD, earned Dr. Tomarken the prestigious Martell Award: the largest music-industry foundation funding research for cancer and AIDS.

Dr. Tomarken has published empirical articles and book-chapters in the field of health psychology, specifically in loss and mourning. This compelling, personal and painful article, from June 2018, is on suicide and survivor’s guilt.

Tomarken’s professional life is largely spent in private practice, working with many patients who have experienced traumatic loss, with writing that incorporates psychoanalytic principles and ideas in everyday experiences.


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