Meet the Founder
Paul Lichtenberg, PhD
Paul Lichtenberg was born in 1958 in Flushing, Queens, New York and grew up the youngest of five children in Whitestone, the neighboring town. Whitestone was an ethnically diverse community, part of what was called New York’s “melting pot” of first and second generation immigrants. Both of Paul’s parents grew up in the Bronx during the `Great Depression.’ Paul’s father was a World War II veteran who suffered from alcoholism related to severe trauma experienced in Okinawa and Tarawa in the South Pacific, where as an adolescent he was engaged in combat. Paul’s mom had been orphaned when she was five years old and grew up through New York City’s foster care programs. Paul’s parents met in high school. Though both of Paul’s parents were able to successfully create a close-knit `post-War’ family and community experience, Paul learned quickly that profound emotional challenges belied the great desire to sustain cohesion. Following Paul’s father’s early death at 46 when Paul was twelve, the breakdown and family cohesion occurred quickly. Isolation soon replaced connection. Further, Paul’s upbringing during the 1960’s and its `cultural revolution’ was also marked by the ravages of social unrest and racism. Understanding the both positive and negative profound and pervasive forces of culture on psychological, relational, and societal development that Paul directly experienced and witnessed, became his life passion.
Needing to work long hours while pursuing academic degrees, which culminated in a PhD in psychology, Paul was employed as a psychologist in the New York City Board of Education, revisiting his parents’ Bronx culture. Fostering another of his life passions, along with developing close relationships guiding children and families through the many socioeconomic, learning, and emotional challenges of New York inner city public education, Paul spearheaded and initiated the process of building school gardens in abandoned lots located next to schools with teachers and students. Combined with a new career as a clinical psychologist in private practice, this initiative and inspiration that extended healing across many levels of development and human experience, was a turning point for Paul that led to the insights of integrative relational health.
In 2018, almost thirty years into private practice and study of many models of integrated philosophies and health practices, Paul founded a training group practice community, called `The Therapy-Collective’ around integrative relational health. Integrative relational health is committed to making mental health support accessible to all, but its foundational principles address what mental or relational support means in order to approach richly complex human needs and be most effective. Integrative relational health begins with the simple understanding that healthy relationships create healthy individuals. Further, the primary relationship that generates health is culture itself in that culture potentially supports our very capacity to become empathic, compassionate human beings caring for each other. A caretaker who has not been prepared with basic caretaking needs that culture and society potentially provide, for example, will be at risk of failing to provide the basic needs of their children. Integrative thinking, that is, understanding that and how we are all interconnected, leads to developing the integrative knowledge, methods, and collaborative practices that optimize relational support. The Therapy-Collective (TTC) group practice has been the core training organization for developing integrative relational health practices. Since 2019, TTC has trained over 40 therapists and served hundreds of clients. Therapists at TTC become leaders in the field who promote integrative relational health principles and practices, build communities of practice, and collaborative opportunities for other healthcare practitioners and clients alike.
In 2024, Paul formed the Center for Integrative Relational Health to expand his efforts to raise awareness of the need for integrative relational models. His vision for the Center for IRH are to educate the public about relational health, depathologize suffering, and advocate for policy changes that promote comprehensive collaborative systems of therapeutic care.