David Celani, PhD

David Celani, Ph.D. has spent 26 years in private practice in Burlington, Vermont while simultaneously working as an adjunct professor at the University of Vermont and later, in the MA program at St. Michael’s College. He has extensive experience with Borderline Personality Disorder, often taking referrals from other clinicians who were relieved to rid themselves of these difficult and emotionally exhausting clients.

In 1993 Dr. Celani published his first book, The Treatment of the Borderline Patient: Applying Fairbairn’s Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting (International Universities Press). Soon after he published The Illusion of Love: Why the Battered Woman Returns to her Abuser (Columbia University Press, 1994). That text received honorable mention in from the American Association of University Publishers in the science category and has since been translated into Korean. The text created interest in the media and Dr. Celani was interviewed by Elle Magazine, appeared on Larry King Live, and was also interviewed by the Discovery Chanel in their two part series “The Science of Love”.

In 2005, Dr. Celani published a book designed for clients titled Leaving Home, How to Separate from Your Difficult Family (Columbia University Press) and it too has been issued in both a Korean edition as well as in a Romanian language edition and in a softcover (English) edition in 2011. Most recently, Celani published Fairbairn’s Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting (Columbia University Press 2010) a book designed for the mental health professional. He has published journal articles in The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, as well as book chapters and book reviews.

For the past ten years he has presented continuing education workshops across the country. He is a passionate, humorous and inspirational speaker who offers the working clinician a completely new approach to this clinical population.