Meet Kate

Clinical Director

Kate Chittenden, Psy.D.

Kate Chittenden, Psy.D. has been helping children, adolescents and parents for close to 25 years. She has spent much of her career in the public sphere working with HIV positive adults, children and their families across clinics and services at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, North Central Bronx Hospital and Jacobi Medical Center. As the Training Director for Psychology at Jacobi Medical Center, the largest trauma center in the tri-state area, Dr. Chittenden has taught a generation of young psychologists to recognize and treat the whole child within their family and culture.

Dr. Chittenden was educated at Vassar College and the Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology. She has expertise in working with trauma, complicated learning challenges, and helping young adults embrace their emerging identities. She is trained psychodynamically and has received additional training in play therapy, DBT, CBT, Mentalization Based Treatment, somatic approaches to trauma and Internal Family Systems. She offers a wide and creative tool kit to help parents and kids make sense of their feelings, gain control of their behavior, and succeed academically, vocationally and socially. Her research interests have centered around sexuality and gender as well as the sequelae of medical trauma.

Prior to her work as a psychologist, Dr. Chittenden had a successful decade-long career as an artist in the New York theater; in addition to her child and family work, she is uniquely able to help individuals working in artistic fields connect with their creativity and produce their best work.

Dr. Chittenden lives in Westchester with her husband and teenage son, as well as their two rescue pitbull mixes. She is proud to have built a deep understanding of both the pleasures and challenges of living in this community.

“Psychotherapy can be intense and even a bit scary, but at its best it can be one of the most transformative, exciting, and moving experiences in a person’s life.”
— KATE CHITTENDEN, PSY. D.