Dr. Yotam Heineberg

Clinical research rater

Dr. Yotam Heineberg is a licensed clinical psychologist and a clinical faculty member at Palo Alto University’s Gronowski Center, where he offers supervision, clinical and didactic psychotherapy training in Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), and other compassion-focused approaches to healing and growth. Dr. Heineberg was a Research Fellow at Stanford University with the Center for Compassion and Altruism, Research and Education (CCARE), where he developed various compassion programs to support personal and collective resilience, as well as compassion for self and others. 

During his time at CCARE he spent four years working as a stress/burnout compassion interventionist at the Dignity Health hospital chain. He designed and implemented both online and in-person compassion-based programs that supported nurses, clinicians, leaders, and patients in hospital settings.  

His previous work and research experience at CCARE focused on transformations from violence to peace in ex-gang members who turned into peacemakers. Offering healing to inner-city children and their caretakers, as well as healthcare workers, veterans, leaders, and other groups has been his ongoing focus of care.

His core passion emerged from a focus on the cycle of violence trauma and aggression. He is driven by the belief that compassion is the ideal antidote to a fundamental truth of our species; hurt people hurt people. 

Dr. Heineberg completed his doctorate at the PGSP-Stanford Psy.D. consortium at Palo Alto University and his post-doctoral training at Stanford University’s CCARE. During that time, he trained with Professor Paul Gilbert, who developed the CFT model in the UK. He is currently completing his psychedelic facilitation certificate at UC Berkeley’s BCSP (Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics).He lives in San Francisco, runs a private practice, and offers compassion-focused lectures, experiential workshops, and group trainings.