My name is Dov Heller and thank you for visiting my site. I have been married for over 35 years to my wife Chana. We have five children and numerous grandchildren. I grew up in a secular Jewish home on the east coast where sports and music were far more important to me than personal and spiritual growth. I played on a variety of varsity sports teams in high school and college including football, basketball, swimming, and tennis. I also studied dance and sang professionally in the Harvard Choir during graduate school.
I attended Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and majored in modern philosophy. There I began to delve into what I believe is life’s ultimate question: “What are you living for?” This question led me on an exploration of existential philosophy, psychology, and Christian and Jewish theology.
After college, I attended Harvard University to pursue a Masters of Theological Studies. I continued grappling with my philosophical and theological questions and was able to dialogue with some of the great minds in academia. After a while, I decided to take a leave of absence and travel in Europe in order to “get some perspective” and visited various religious communities. My last stop was Israel, where I was introduced to my spiritual mentor, Rabbi Noah Weinberg. I was fascinated by the world of Jewish spirituality I encountered in Jerusalem, which, for the first time in my life, made sense to me. Rabbi Weinberg is one of the foremost teachers in the world of Jewish spirituality, translating sophisticated concepts of traditional philosophy and theology into practical tools for personal growth and character refinement. I studied in his school (Yeshiva) for seven years which culminated in my ordination as a rabbi.
I returned to the United States in 1982 and began teaching and counseling students at Aish HaTorah, first in St. Louis and later in Los Angeles, where I have lived for over twenty years. After some time, I began to feel limited in how far I could take students in their personal and spiritual growth before they seemed to hit a wall. I soon realized that I was unable to help them with their spiritual growth because I did not know how to help them with their deeper emotional problems. I returned to school to study clinical psychology and to seek answers in the world of analytic depth psychology. I became a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a practice in Beverly Hills. I was extremely fortunate to find my present mentor, Dr. Robert Stolorow, the founder of Intersubjective Analytic Psychotherapy (Dr. Stolorow has written many books and articles which can be found online. Please see Basic Concepts for a more in- depth description of his approach to psychotherapy and the process of change.)
Because of my life experience and education, I feel I can help a wide variety of people. I also feel that one of my strongest assets as a therapist is that I love seeing people succeed. Being involved in people’s lives in this very personal way is something I consider a very special privilege. I am truly thankful every day I go to my office.