About Dr. Olbert

The psychoanalyst Wilfrid Bion wrote that the psyche needs truth just as much as the body needs food. Training as a clinical psychologist represents the outward-facing, professional image of my own extended, impassioned search for truth—personal, spiritual, and relational.

Having studied astrophysics and academic philosophy, my experience was that abstract and so-called “objective” truth that does not get close to the bone has very little capacity to alleviate suffering, let alone transform and deepen human life.

Psychotherapy, for me, represents the sincere effort to make meaning out of our suffering. The poet John Keats, in an impassioned letter to his brother, wrote about his conviction that suffering can serve to “school an intelligence and make it a soul.” This does not come easily, and it must often occur in relationship. In addition to my own psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, my own soul-making process has involved a daily Zen meditation practice maintained for over 13 years.

Psychotherapy centers the personal experience of the patient rather than that of the therapist. Nevertheless, many patients find it reassuring to know that their therapist knows what it’s like. That is, it helps to know that the therapist’s perspective is not merely academic or professional, but that they’ve got skin in the game and are ready to enter into a deeply personal encounter with human suffering—ready because they have gone there in their own life. Without going into details, I do not mind sharing that with over 10 years of personal psychotherapy experience myself, including over 300 hours of my own 4 times a week psychoanalysis, I am intimately familiar with what it’s like to be a patient and to delve deeply into one’s own mind in the search for healing and self-discovery.

In one of my therapy encounters much earlier in life, I received treatment from a masters-level clinician who applied CBT techniques. I quickly understood the methodology, and and once I was no longer in acute distress, the therapist asked me, “Why are you still in therapy?” Although upon reflection she obviously meant well and intended to reinforce the progress I had made, in the moment I felt dismissed and was dismayed that this professional seemed not to see or understand the profound uncertainty and pain I still harbored deep within me.

This experience planted the seed of a conviction to plumb the depths, forge ahead into uncertainty and darkness, and pursue therapies and training that aim at the roots of people’s troubles rather than polishing up the surfaces of things with coping skills and therapeutic clichés. Although I have also received training in short-term, solution-focused therapy, my passion and true expertise are in long-term, intensive psychotherapy aimed at personal transformation rather than just symptom relief.

At its best, psychotherapy goes beyond having a compassionate listener or expert to teach you skills or coping mechanisms: life-changing psychotherapy involves a meeting of the minds, a true human encounter, a relationship with depth and power.

If this sounds interesting to you, please get in touch via email (rainmasonphd@gmail.com) or phone (919-259-1793) to set up a free 15-minute phone consultation.

For more about my professional credentials and clinical training, please see below.