Antonia Bercovici, PhD

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED — I was a patient of Dr. Bercovici’s for over a year and found her to be one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met, let alone therapist. She may be straightforward at times, but I think that’s a reflection of adept nature knowing when to empathize or communicate directly. Some times you need to hear it like it is, but she does so in an extremely empathetic, incredibly articulate, and extraordinarily perceptive manner. She is thinking 10 steps ahead as knows the human psyche like the psychoanalytical genius that she is. I could not recommend her more, as a person, or therapist. I feel privelidged to have gotten to know her, and thankful for the amazing impact she has had on my life!

I saw Dr. Bercovici for approximately 2 years, long ago, as a teenager. She did allow phone calls which I appreciated. Overall, though, I found the therapy unhelpful, and would have left sooner if I were more experienced perhaps. I recall her seeming to doze during sessions occasionally, being distant, and do not feel we developed a good alliance. I recently asked her for records (and I offered to pay costs for retrieving them) and did not find her response, that I should focus on the future not the past, helpful or professional. She did not provide records. A subsequent therapist who I also saw for two years was tremendously more helpful and empathetic.

I was in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with Dr. Bercovici for several years. I came to her after years of neglect and abuse with very little sense of my self. She was patient, warm and supportive, while challenging me to test my perception of myself as worthless. She share appropriate examples of her personal struggles to encourage me in mine. She encouraged me to think for myself and make well-​considered opinions in my own life — never pressuring me to take any one course of action rather than another. I am myself a therapist and I have the greatest respect for her work. She has developed great wisdom in her prolific career and she offers it generously to her patients.

i’m a therapist myself so i’m a bit picky. but after about 12 sessions i’d had enough. Not to disrespect Dr. B., but she is not very supportive or warm. She tells it straight, which is good, but think that a patient can only be challenged as much as she is supported, otherwise you always end up feeling judged and disliked, even. I also felt like she didn’t remember me (she actually had me repeat all my information during the second session, and didn’t remember that she’d seen me the week before) and i constantly had to remind her of things, wasting time in session. I came to her with real problems and left in worse shape than i entered. She talks too much about herself. She is too judgmental, and she basically encouraged me to leave my husband without proper exploration of the implications and complicated feelings involved. I was also involved in legal issues at the time, and since she’s an attorney as well, we spent a lot of time on that issue. at one session, i was feeling so emotionally distressed, i said, «i want to talk about my mental health (rather than my legal problems)» and she said no, we needed to talk about my legal issues. the problem was my poor mental state was contributing, greatly, to my poor judgment and i was continuing to dig myself into a legal hole. I needed her to help me regain my emotional stability, not just tell me what to do and make me feel worse about myself. then when a crisis hit, she seemed much more interested in CYA than my welll-​being.