About
Silvia Pomares, LMHC, LPCC
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist · In-person in Mar Vista, online throughout California and Massachusetts · Bilingual: English & Spanish
I came to this work through a long curiosity about why we do what we do — and especially why we do what we know we would rather not. The patterns we cannot quite leave. The choices we keep finding ourselves making. The voice in the room that no one in the room can hear, but everyone is somehow responding to.
I trained originally as a clinical psychologist in Madrid, where I grew up. After moving to the United States, I completed an MA in Mental Health Counseling at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis — one of the only graduate schools in the country dedicated entirely to psychoanalytic training — and have been in practice for the last 14 years. My primary work now is with adults and couples, in English or Spanish, from a small private practice in Mar Vista.
Psychoanalytic therapy is, to me, the form of attention best equipped for the harder questions. Not because it provides quick answers, but because it makes room for the slower, stranger kind of knowing — the kind that comes when something can finally be said aloud, sometimes for the first time, to someone who is genuinely listening.
That is the work I try to offer.
Credentials
Training & licensure.
- Graduate (US)
MA, Mental Health Counseling
Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis (BGSP), 2019. A graduate school dedicated to psychoanalytic theory and clinical training, with additional certification in Diagnostic Evaluation and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.
- Undergraduate (Spain)
Degree in Clinical Psychology
Trained as a clinical psychologist in Madrid, Spain, where the path to the title differs from the United States. This is the foundation of the practice.
- Licensure
Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor · CA
Licensed by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences as a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (License #LPCC21271), authorized to provide psychotherapy throughout the state of California.
- Licensure
Licensed Mental Health Counselor · MA
Licensed by the Massachusetts Board of Allied Mental Health as an LMHC (#13156), authorized to provide psychotherapy throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
- In practice
14 years of clinical experience
Practicing continuously since 2012, across community and private-practice settings, with adults, couples, families, and adolescents.
California Board of Behavioral Sciences, License #LPCC21271
Massachusetts Board of Allied Mental Health, LMHC #13156
Philosophy
How I think about
the work.
Psychoanalytic therapy rests on a few quiet convictions. That much of what shapes us lives below the surface of awareness. That we repeat what we have not yet been able to know. That the structure of our earliest relationships continues, often unbidden, to organize the relationships we have now.
In practice, this looks like a particular kind of conversation — unhurried, associative, less concerned with fixing than with understanding. We notice what comes up. We follow it where it goes. We pay attention to what happens between us in the room, because that too is information.
This is not therapy for everyone. It asks a real commitment of time, and it tolerates not-knowing for longer than most modern things do. But for those it suits — those who want depth, not only relief — it can change a life from the inside out.
At a glance
Format
In-person & telehealth
Languages
English & Spanish
Modality
Psychoanalytic / Psychodynamic
Population
Primarily adults & couples
Begin
The first step is a conversation.
A complimentary 20-minute consultation by phone — to hear what brings you, and to see whether we might be a fit. There is no obligation.