About Sara Granovetter, MA, PhD

Sara is a mindfulness-based, analytically informed psychotherapist, a professor at California Institute of Integral Studies, published author, and activist. She maintains a therapy practice and classroom that reflects her own training, and is a study in paradoxes, as she is. Read on to learn how her training informs therapy that merges rigorous analysis with deep inner listening. 

Sara received a B.A. in Philosophy from Harvard University with a specialization in European continental philosophy. Her study of philosophy continued as a PhD student at University of California, Santa Cruz, where she cultivated an appreciation for the power of thought to unwind complex personal, familial and societal problems. Upon graduation she became a writer and teacher, developing curriculum and textbooks for the Princeton Review and teaching writing to advanced high school students.  

Following a call from within, she left her career to apprentice at the Esalen Institute, where she studied somatic psychology, shamanic journeying and Gestalt therapy. At the same time, she began to study Zen Buddhism with a trusted roshi, under whom she still studies. During this time, she learned to dethrone the mind as the center of the universe.

After living at the Esalen Institute, a countercultural nexus for the soul, she continued graduate training at California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS), which provides holistic education for psychotherapists, an antidote to traditional academia. After receiving an M.A. in counseling psychology with specializations in psychoanalysis, Jungian depth psychology and dreamwork, she pursued additional training in Gestalt therapy at the Church Street Counseling Center, where she transitioned into the role of intern and trainer for budding therapists. She also served as lead facilitator for Fiddleheads nature connection therapy groups, as well as curriculum developer and facilitator for SEEDS, a mindfulness based social-emotional training group that supports children and adolescents within schools.

Currently she sees adults and teenagers in her private therapy practice and is an adjunct professor in East West Psychology at CIIS. In her doctoral and post-doctoral research, she writes and publishes about the impact of disconnection from our plant and animal kin. In her private practice and workshops, she blends meditation, Gestalt therapy and hypnotic visualization with psychoanalysis and Jungian depth psychology to help people recover their sense of purpose and aliveness.