"I see my work as helping people become their best and happiest selves through development and healing based on personal traits, strengths, and values"
Dr. Amanda Borlenghi, Psy.D.
About Me
My journey to realizing a career in my calling as a psychotherapist began in 2005 when I began the prestigious clinical psychology program at the University of Denver. Upon graduation in 2010 I moved to beautiful San Diego to begin my career. In the years since, I have honed an integrative method of therapy with the goal of healing and transformation through self-understanding and insight combined with skill building and the resolution of pain from disturbing life experiences. I understand that an individual's inborn temperament interacts with experiences at specific stages of life to form what we call personality. Personality then becomes how we do all aspects of our lives. In addition to my training in psychology, I draw from 15 years of yoga and meditation practice and instruction. My style as a therapist and coach is compassionate, direct, collaborative, positive, and intuitive.
Background and Experience
Since 2005, when I began my graduate work in psychology, I have had the privilege of working as a therapist, coach, and organizational psychologist in settings ranging from private practice to corporations to universities. My clients have included college professors, stay-at-home moms, fortune 500 executives, real estate developers, the seriously mentally ill, and others. Through these experiences, I have come to view work as immense privilege, pleasure, and responsibility. I take the APA ethics code very seriously, and view my work as an honor that comes with a responsibility to be ethical, compassionate, and non-judgmental with each individual. I am passionate about providing my psychotherapy and coaching clientele with a highly-personalized experience to help them in their pursuit of wellness, mastery, and transformation.
How I look at psychological issues
I take a positive approach to psychology in which I look at emotional pain, crisis, and relationship problems that arise in life as an opportunity for personal growth and healing. I believe that every person has within them everything they need to heal, grow, and thrive. For this reason, I work collaboratively with patients using my expertise in psychology alongside their expertise in their own lives and experiences. My approach does not deny that true psychopathology exists, and when it does it needs to be treated as such. Rather, my approach avoids looking at every issue as a mental illness. I look at each client as having a human experience that involves the full spectrum of emotion. My goal is to help my clients to move into whatever it means for them as an individual to be a healthier, more integrated, and higher functioning version of themselves. By integrating knowledge from professional studies and mentors, along with experiences with hundreds of patients, I have acquired methods and tools for psychotherapy that are highly effective and achieve results.
Integrative Psychology
My lens as a psychologist comes from the framework from a school of thought called Integral Theory. This means that I look at every client’s reason for coming for therapy, coaching or consultation, in terms of how it is both influenced by and impacting their inner experience (emotions and thoughts), relationships, physiology, as well as the different systems they engage in in the world. I also utilize personality assessment to understand the nuances of who my clients are and assess my client’s development and developmental in a multitude of areas. For psychotherapy clients, based on the individual needs, personality, and development, I create a treatment plan that draws from a number of different approaches and schools of thought, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, EMDR, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, and Positive Psychology. With my coaching clients I utilize Behavioral Economics, Positive Psychology, and Organizational Psychology approaches. The specifics of the approach I use in psychotherapy and consultation vary depending the needs and development of the client.
Amanda Borlenghi, Psy.D
240 9th St. Del Mar
858.395.7399
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
CA License Number PSY25760
dr.borlenghi@gmail.com