Steven A. Frankel, M.D. has practiced and taught in the San Francisco Bay Area for over thirty years. He is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in both general and child psychiatry, and has authored many professional articles and four books. His collaborative model of treatment is elaborated in his books: Evidence from Within: A New Paradigm for Clinical Practice (2008, Rowman and Littlefield), Making Psychotherapy Work: Collaborating Effectively with your Patient (2007, The Psychosocial Press [An imprint of International Universities Press]), Hidden Faults: Recognizing and Resolving Therapeutic Disjunctions (2000, The Psychosocial Press [An imprint of International Universities Press]), and Intricate Engagements: The Collaborative Basis of Therapeutic Change (1995, Jason Aronson; 2004, Rowman and Littlefield). He teaches and consults widely, drawing on his interest in the determinants of success or failure in psychotherapy and the research he has done in this area and child development.

A graduate of Yale Medical School, he was an NIMH research fellow in pharmacology at Stanford University Medical School, and then trained in psychiatry at the University of California Mount Zion Hospital and Medical Center in San Francisco, where he later joined the academic faculty. Dr. Frankel then received psychoanalytic training at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, where he is a member of its faculty. Additionally, he is a training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California in San Francisco, and at the Newport Psychoanalytic Institute in Southern California. He is also an associate clinical professor at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of California he was a full time faculty member at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has been designated a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, attained certification by the American Psychoanalytic Association, and has been voted by his peers to Best Doctors in America each year since 1987.