Our Mission:

Volunteers In Psychotherapy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing affordable and truly private psychotherapy for the community, in exchange for volunteer work clients donate to the charity of their choice.

You, the client should decide how long you will continue in therapy:
Not an insurance company that profits by cutting the length of therapy.

VIP has been awarded grants by:

The J. Walton Bissell Foundation
The Daphne Seybolt Culpeper Foundation
The Carse Robinson et al Foundation, Fleet Bank, Trustee
The George A. and Grace L. Long Foundation, Fleet Bank, Trustee
The Jodik Foundation
Ziv Tzedakah Fund (an international charity)
The Maximilian E. and Marion O. Hoffman Foundation
The Ensworth Charitable Foundation, Fleet Bank, Trustee
The Timothy Mark Capers Foundation
Healthy People 2010 (Yale-Griffin PRC)
The Cottonwood Foundation
The Ahearn Family Foundation
The J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation
The Universalist Church of West Hartford Wild Oats Market
The Greater Hartford Jaycees Foundation

Board of Directors:

Kelly Anthony, Ph.D. is the first Williams Visiting Assistant Professor in Psychology at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. She has taught over 25 courses in the past few years at several universities, including a small Native Indian college in California. She teaches across the field of Psychology, including courses from the sub-areas of Clinical, Developmental and Social psychology. Kelly and her husband Joel are homeowners, and active volunteers and participants in local government. She feels strongly about the role of academics in helping to build free, safe, compassionate, and engaged communities.

Jane Clark, M.S.N. has been a psychiatric mental health nurse for the past twenty-seven years, working at Hartford Hospital, the Institute of Living, Hospital for Special Care on their traumatic brain injury unit, Connecticut Mental Health Center, and New Britain General Hospital. She received her Masters in psychiatric mental health nursing from Yale University in May 1997. She has consulted to various nursing homes in Connecticut assessing mental health problems in the elderly and more recently has been working at Community Care Mental Health Center in Springfield, Mass. She also maintains a small private practice in New Britain. Currently she is a third year doctoral student at Yale school of nursing, specializing in research related to families and mental health. Jane is a lifelong resident of West Hartford, where she also raised her children.

Christine H. Farber, Ph.D., our Vice President, is a licensed Psychologist at the Traumatic Stress Institute - Center for Adult & Adolescent Psychotherapy in South Windsor, CT, where she pursues clinical interests in trauma, grief and loss, and the psychological impact of physical illness. She also coordinates the Sudden Traumatic Loss Treatment Program. She previously served on the Residential team at The Ethel Walker School, and has worked with learning disabled and special needs children. She previously served on the Board of Directors of the Scleroderma Foundation of Pittsburgh.

Dr. William Olds is best known for his work as Executive Director of The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union for more than 25 years (until 1996). Bill has also been a researcher for the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) and has written a column on privacy issues which may soon be syndicated. He has won numerous awards, including a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the U.S. House of Representatives for civil liberties advocacy, the Annual Pro Bono Award from Connecticut Law Tribune, the Liberty Bell Award from the Hartford County Bar Association, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents.

Dr. Evan Pitkoff, our Treasurer, received his B.S. in psychology from Brooklyn College, attained two Masters degrees (one in Special Education) from N.Y.U., and a Doctor of Education in educational administration from Teachers College, Columbia University. He spent the first ten years of his career in the New York City High School division, serving in Brooklyn as a special education teacher and coordinator, and eventually becoming assistant principal at Erasmus Hall High School. He came to Connecticut in 1988 and lived in West Hartford while serving as Principal of New Britain High School, Assistant Superintendent of the Hamden Public Schools, and Superintendent of Schools for Region #10 (Burlington and Harwinton). He currently is Superintendent in Newtown. He has presented workshops and written journal articles in numerous areas of education.

Elizabeth A. Richter, our Secretary, is currently co-owner and business manager of a New England Veterinary Pathology Service. For the past twelve years, she has been an adjunct Instructor at Tunxis Community College where she teaches English. She is also a psychiatric survivor who was hospitalized for two years at McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA with a diagnosis of schizophrenia from which she has experienced an excellent recovery. As a freelance writer she has published a number of articles on the experience of having a psychiatric disability. At this time, her memoir on that subject "Songs of the Captive" has been placed with an agent. Elizabeth has a B.A. from Mt. Holyoke College, an M.L.A. in English from Harvard University, and she received her certification as a High School English teacher from UMass/Boston. Currently, she lives in Canton with her husband Alex and their three children--9,5, and 3.

Richard Shulman, Ph.D., our President, is a licensed Clinical Psychologist. He founded VIP after roughly a decade’s work at Hartford Hospital - Institute of Living, where he had provided psychotherapy and had supervised and trained therapists at the outpatient clinic. That clinic primarily served Hartford’s poor or uninsured population. He continues to serve as a volunteer on the Institutional Review Board of Hartford Hospital - Institute of Living. He previously worked at the Children’s Outpatient program of Wheeler Clinic, and served as Psychological consultant to Nutmeg Big Brothers - Big Sisters. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University.