Douglas J. Van Der Heide, M.D.

Leading Psychoanalyst, Psychiatrist, Dream Expert and Educator

Dr. Van Der Heide is a leading psychoanalyst, psychiatrist and educator practicing in New York City.

He has a very personal link to the field as his father was a physician and psychoanalyst himself; receiving his psychoanalytic training in Vienna with Sigmund Freud in the 1920’s. It was the interest of Franz Alexander in psychosomatic medicine that made it possible for his father and family to leave Europe on the eve of World War Two to come to the U.S. to study. Years later, Dr. Van Der Heide’s father would become the founding dean of a major institute of psychoanalytic training in Los Angeles.

The mystery of psychoanalysis has gripped Dr. Van Der Heide since he was a child and his respect and love for psychoanalysis has never left. Decades of work with patients combined with exposure to superb teachers and clinicians, has allowed him to achieve the highest level of professional excellence in the field.

He graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1976 and is Board certified in psychiatry by the American Psychiatric Association. He graduated from the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1997 and is Certified in psychoanalysis by the American Psychoanalytic Association. He was appointed Supervising and Training Analyst by The Institute for Psychoanalytic Education affiliated with NYU in 2015.

Teaching has been a priority in his life and is second only to his clinical dedication. From 1988-1999 he taught basic analytic theory and the initiation of psychodynamic treatment to psychiatric residents at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Since 1997 he has co-taught the clinical dream course to senior candidates at New York Psychoanalytic Institute. This course was formerly taught by such giants as Edward Nersessian and, before him, Nicholas Young and Otto Isakower. More recently, since 2010, he has taught dream theory and clinical work with dreams to senior candidates at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Education affiliated with NYU.

Dr. Van Der Heide has a special interest in dreams, both as a continuing perspective on the way our minds work and as an unparalleled source of information about patients and their individual conflicts.

You may learn more about his work at www.drvanderheide.com.