Michael Topel, PsyD

I've said it all

I think Dr. Mike Topel can be helpful with short term therapy and working with those in their 30's and 40'. I have seen him for intensive psychotherapy and you might be a good fit or not. This will take time to figure out because he is good at getting you to attach to him, however, he makes an abuncance or errors, such as twisting what you say and arguing with you about that. He has violated my confidentiality.. and that is a big ethics violation - so make sure you have his promise in writing if you don't want him to violate your confidential, and do put it in writing, because he tends to forget things he says, or agrees to. He can by empathic, and if you want to examine your early life he's very able to do that. The issue I disliked is when I stopped idealizing him, he broke appointments, did not remember we had an agreement about them, and really has difficulty to apologizing for his errors. He makes assumptions, with out checking them out with you , which is one thing a doctor and patient must do, yet he really is not able to do this.For example he will change frequency of your appointments, without you and he every having a discussion about it. Sometimes it seems vindictive to me, at others he misunderstand what you have said and react off the cuff with out discussing it over with you.becuase he didn't talk this over with you and get your content, or explain what he was thinking when he changes your session times, since he may have misunderstood you, but fails to check that out with you. This happened often to me so I imagine it would happen to others. In the befinning he is warm. He will get you dependent on him, and he handles that dependency very poorly (which is no good given his psychodynamic orientation.) I would look else to find someone for psychodynamic psychotherapy, with more experience, of which he seems to have actually very little training doing this mode of therapy.

So if you want psychodynamic therapy on a long term basis he might be a poor choice due to his difficulties and lack of time practicing in this way.

If you want short term problem solving therapy, I imagine he would be competent, thoughtful and warm Although I can't testify to that since we didn't engage in problem solving therapy

I hope this helps some individuals to not make the mistake I did, saving you much time and energy. He does get positive reviews, but they seem to be from younger age patients, and paitients with marital and family problems.