Welcome to my blog,
Diane Kern, Marriage and Family Counselor and Dr. of Criminology
1415 Oakland Blvd. Suite 100
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
925-943-5503
drkern@insightcenter.net

I have been in private practice as a ‘Marriage and Family Therapist’ for many years. (What does that mean? See FAQ).

I grew up in Oakland, California and ’stepped onto the stage of life’ as a young white woman in the 1960’s. Well, that alone says a lot. I treated my formal education rather like a potluck meal enjoying every opportunity to study a wide range of subjects. Little did I know then that, when I applied to graduate school at the University of California in Berkeley, I would be immersing myself in a ‘radical’ program. The School of Criminology at Berkeley was ‘interdisciplinary’. Most academic programs of the day were narrowly conceived; you learned psychology or sociology or political science. Well, in my little program, they brought together faculty from several disciplines to study social problems; crime and mental illness. Members of the faculty didn’t agree on much and debates were heady.

In that ‘politicized context I studied psychoanalytic theory and practice, I administered batteries of psych tests and I completed an internship under the supervision of well known psychoanalyst, Bernard Diamond. Then I had the good fortune to travel to India for cross-cultural studies.

So much for my ‘formal education’. What I am most grateful for is my informal education.

My children have taught me a lot and I am an inveterate reader. Early on I found work in related fields critical to a any understanding of how we come to be who and what we are. I found Yogi Philosophy thought provoking. I have tracked the work of Karl Pribram, a far-sighted neuroscientist; his work has led me to ‘quantum physics’. Do I really ‘get’ ‘quantum physics’? No, but the good news is my physicist friends tell me, “nobody does, just jump in and do your best”, so here I am.

In the course of my work as a marriage and family therapist, I have had the privilege of helping many folks who were inclined to sort themselves out. I have learned a great deal being part of their process of exploration and for that, I am grateful. My part in the process has been to stand beside them as they, with no small amount of courage, ask themselves hard questions.

Oh…in ‘clinical’ terms; I have ‘treated’ all manner of ‘mental disorder’.