About Laura Arens-Fuerstein
During 35 years as a psychoanalyst and couples therapist, Laura Arens-Fuerstein, Ph.D., has helped countless men and women with issues linked to relationships, self esteem, sexuality, body image and parenting. She continues in private practice today and leads supervision groups in Highland Park, New Jersey.
Laura began her professional life as a primary school teacher.
I noticed I enjoyed helping the kids with their emotional issues and helping parents with their kids' problems. Looking back on those years, the psychotherapist in me was always there
Once she began as an individual and couples therapist, Laura’s passion for the work grew.
When someone enters my consulting room, I have to first recognize the clues about how her problem started, translate her distinct style of expression, and then share what I’ve learned in a way that allows her to see and feel her deepest truths in her journey toward health. I feel so rewarded when I foster that experience. And while each person is unique, she also shares her universal humanness with me, which enhances my ability to step into her shoes and then step out of them enough to be helpful.
Writing is another area of interest for Laura, one she developed throughout her analytic career. She has had numerous professional articles published. As a guest speaker at various settings, she recognized the importance of translating technical jargon into simpler language for lay audiences. And she enjoyed making that happen. That awareness inspired her to write a book that would reach both interested readers in the wider population and analytic clinicians.
Also, I wanted to use my own voice more than I had for the academic material I’d written in the past, and include a creative non-fiction style.
There was one particular subject that drew her in – the universal mother-daughter relationship.
This was a subject that I had built up so much research about through the years in treating my female – and male – patients, and in being a daughter myself. Most women circle back to that mother-daughter twosome, no matter where they start in therapy, and many men have had experiences with a mother-daughter relationship that influenced their lives significantly – their grandmothers with their mothers, their aunts with their mothers and grandmothers, or their sisters with their mothers.
Once she identified her approach, the book emerged through a natural process.
Early on, the writing slowed at times, as I sought the balance between my objectivity and personal sensibility... But once I brought the two areas together, the words began to flow more naturally and I discovered I could work for many hours a day with the clock fading away. It suddenly dawned on me that I was having the very same experience I aimed to help readers gain, that is, to open up their creativity.
Laura earned her doctoral degree from New York University and is a graduate of The New York Center for Psychoanalytic Training (NYCPT). Today, she trains other clinicians in her approach to psychotherapy. She is also the author of numerous articles published in such professional journals as The Psychoanalytic Review, along with chapters in academic books.
In addition, she has appeared on national TV programs such as FOX’s news program, Fox and Friends, and CNN’s Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell and cable TV shows such as ABC’s New Jersey Perspective, NBC’s Philadelphia program, "10!", and CBS’s Washington D.C. program, 9 News Now. She also has been a guest on numerous radio programs, including WCBS-AM, CNN, and Sirius Radio, and her interviews have appeared on the Forbes and Newsweek websites.
Laura is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA, Division 39), and a fellow of the New Jersey Society for Clinical Social Work (NJSCSW). Married for 40 years, she and her husband are the parents of two adult sons.