Tide Pools is a group practice in Oakland, CA founded by Dr. Benjamin Morsa. Dr. Morsa began his practice as a sole-proprietorship, then incorporated the practice in May 2022 with the vision of building a community of psychoanalytically oriented clinicians.

The contemporary mental health climate champions brevity, aggregate data, short-term solutions, quantitative modeling, observable behavior, and functioning goals. While we agree that these tools and features play an important role in public mental health - we also feel they are incomplete and, for some patients and practitioners, limit creative potential and deep change.

At Tide Pools, we believe that enduring change takes time, curiosity, and investment. Consistent and predictable boundaries around our work (what analytic clinicians call “the frame”) cultivates trust and alliance. Encouragement to follow feelings, trains of thought, and inner desires honors the dynamism of individuals and communities and facilitates creativity and surprises.

Our work nurtures insight, the capacity to reflect on self and others, tolerance for the uncertainty inherent in life, the development of trustworthy relationships, a capacity to self-advocate, and the resilience to be in the world. Like tide pools in the ocean, each treatment shares these common goals and, yet, is as novel as the patient in it.