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Em Turner, MA, AMFT
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist
Registered California Marriage & Family Associate
CA AMFT #155423
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Em Turner
I am a psychoanalytically-oriented therapist practicing in South Pasadena and virtually throughout California. My work is grounded in contemporary relational psychoanalysis — an approach that understands the self not as a fixed structure to be repaired, but as something continually forming within relational fields, shaped by the emotional currents that run between people. I am drawn to the parts of experience that resist easy articulation: the patterns that persist without our knowing, the longing beneath the symptom, the places where self-understanding has reached its edges.
I came to this work through my own analysis, through a long relationship with theory, and through lived experience of what it means to be formed — and reformed — in relation to others. I grew up with a highly attuned inner life and learned early to protect it, turning toward reflection and self-sufficiency as a way to navigate a world that didn't always welcome emotional openness. Psychoanalysis offered me something I hadn't known to look for: a space to slow down, to be witnessed, to let what had been intellectualized gradually become inhabited. That process — ongoing, nonlinear, marked by retreat and return — is what I bring into the room with each person I work with.
I hold a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles, where I completed a specialization in LGBTQ+ Affirmative Psychotherapy. My undergraduate training at Sarah Lawrence College in Liberal Arts, with concentrations in Psychology, Critical Theory, and Studio Art, gave me an early foundation in psychoanalytic thought and the interpretive frameworks that continue to shape my clinical sensibility.
I bring both lived experience and specialized training to my work with LGBTQIA+ individuals, couples, and families. I am also attuned to the experiences of neurodivergent minds — those who have long felt the friction between how they process and perceive the world and the environments that weren't built with them in mind. My practice includes adults, adolescents (12+), and relational constellations of all kinds. I work with academics and creatives, parents and rainbow families, people navigating cultural transition or displacement, and those for whom the desire for depth is itself what has brought them to the door.
I see clients in person in South Pasadena and virtually throughout California. I welcome inquiries and offer a free 15-minute consultation.
Credentials
Education
Bachelor of the Arts (B.A.) in Liberal Arts with concentrations in Psychology, Critical Theory & Studio Art. Sarah Lawrence College, NY
Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Artistic Research Werkplaats Typografie, The Netherlands
Master of the Arts (M.A.) in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in LGBTQ+ Affirmative Psychotherapy. Antioch University, Los Angeles
Training
Associate Marriage & Family Therapist (AMFT)
Alison Picard Therapy, South Pasadena, CA
Psychoanalytic Foundations
Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis (ICP), Los Angeles
Graduate Research Assistant
University of California, Santa Barbara
Marriage & Family Therapist Trainee (MFTT)
The Maple Center (TMCC), Los Angeles
Research Assistant
Sarah Lawrence College Early Childhood Center, NY
Memberships
California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT)
APA DIV 39 Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology
International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education
Populations
01
Adults
02
Adolescents & Teens
03
Queer Parents & Rainbow Families
04
Relationships