Private practice lets me structure my time differently. I continue to see people who want shorter-term therapy for milder difficulties. I also have room in my schedule for longer-term psychotherapy with people whose problems are more enduring, where we can take the time to understand the nature of the difficulty as it appears in their lives and as it shows up in the therapy relationship itself. Skills have their place, and I teach them when they help. But when the same problem has survived skill-based treatment, it is usually rooted in something older, and resolving it takes an honest, trusting relationship that has time to develop.
I deeply value those longer relationships. They are the reason I chose, after more than three decades of practice, to enter the Adult Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Program at Columbia University, and they are the center of how I practice now.
What sessions are like
Sessions are conversational rather than scripted. We attend to the symptoms that brought you in and to the patterns beneath them, including what happens between the two of us in the room, which is often where those patterns become visible. When practical skills would help with problem thoughts, feelings, or behaviors, I teach them. The pace and the plan are decisions we make together, and you are free to end therapy at any time.
The paintings on this site are my own watercolors. They are here because looking closely at something, and staying with it, is a good deal of what this work is.
What I do not provide
To help you decide whether we are a good match: I do not provide psychological testing, evaluations, or reports; disability evaluations or evaluations for emotional support animals; therapy for children, teenagers, or families, including family therapy; or counseling for alcohol, substance use, or other addictions such as gambling or pornography, which are outside my training. Although I am trained in EMDR, I do not offer it as a treatment method, and although I am trained in DBT, I integrate DBT skills into psychotherapy rather than offering a full DBT program. I also do not provide crisis or emergency services.
Training and Experience
I earned my Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) from Wright State University School of Professional Psychology in 1988, with a specialization in clinical psychology, and completed an accredited clinical psychology internship at a Veterans Administration Medical Center and a postdoctoral year of supervised practice at Psychological Associates of the Black Hills. I have been a licensed psychologist in Colorado since 1991.
My work has spanned private practice, crisis teams, hospitals, and Kaiser Permanente Behavioral Health, where I served as staff psychologist and supervising psychologist from 1991 to 2019 and supervised psychotherapists and psychologists in training.
In 2026 I began the two-year Adult Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Program at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, a course of advanced seminars and supervised clinical practice with senior psychoanalytic clinicians. Ongoing supervision of this kind is what keeps a long-practicing therapist’s work sharp rather than settled. I also maintain training in contextual behavioral approaches, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Relational Frame Theory.
Memberships and Affiliations
American Psychological Association (APA)
Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology (APA Division 39)
Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS)
Colorado Psychological Association (CPA)
International OCD Foundation
Rachael St.Claire, PsyD
Licensed Psychologist, Colorado (PSY1546)
I’m Dr. Rachael St.Claire, a licensed psychologist providing psychotherapy by secure video for adults across Colorado. My work centers on anxiety, OCD and intrusive thoughts, depression and mood disorders, and the longstanding emotional and relational patterns that keep these difficulties returning. It is grounded in psychodynamic psychotherapy and draws on ACT, CBT, exposure and response prevention, DBT, and mindfulness when those skills will help.
Why I do this work
For twenty-eight years I was a staff psychologist at Kaiser Permanente, where I worked with a large number of people across the full range of psychological difficulty: from distress in response to stressful events and life changes to enduring and serious mental health conditions. Working inside an integrated medical system also meant working alongside psychiatrists, crisis teams, primary care physicians, and specialists in neurology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, and other fields. That breadth taught me a great deal about what helps, and about the limits of what brief treatment can reach.
Hand of Buddha, abhaya mudrā ( gesture of fearlessness)