Benjamin Heilveil

Ben Heilveil is a licensed marriage and family therapist in California and core faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute. He received his bachelor’s degree from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico in Philosophy and his master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. As a psychotherapist Ben has worked in a number of settings including a juvenile detention facility, teen mindfulness meditation retreats, adult substance use treatment, residential treatment for high acuity adolescents, and private practice. Alongside his teaching at Pacifica, Ben has a private practice in Los Angeles and Ventura, California where he sees clients, supervises associates and does equine therapy. Ben’s clinical and research interests include psychodynamic approaches to crisis and high-acuity treatment; equine therapy; ecopsychology and fire policy; analytic psychology; community mental health; the intersection of psychotherapy, race, and prison abolition; ethics of coercive care; treatment of adolescents; clinical training; and cultural complex theory. Ben lives in Ojai, California with his wife and two daughters, and when not teaching and seeing clients is out taking care of their heritage breed goats.