Dr. Cécile Gouffrant

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Get to know Psychoanalyst Cécile Gouffrant McKenna, who serves patients in Pennsylvania.

Cécile is an experienced psychoanalyst providing confidential, supporting and affordable therapy at her private practice in Philadelphia Center City. She offers psychoanalysis and psychotherapy guided by Lacanian theory for those inclined to experience their unconscious in order to achieve durable changes to their lives

Seeing individuals, couples, and therapies, she offers treatment for: depression, mood disorders, anxiety, problems related to dementia (patients, caregivers and families), Alzheimer’s disease, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia; self-esteem or self confidence issues, identity crisis, plastic surgery, medical conditions; couple and family dynamics, aging parents, parenting, gender identity; work related problems, career development or stalling; and multiculturalism.

Cécile first trained in Bordeaux, France, as a cognitive psychologist conducting research on memory, especially with Alzheimer’s patients. After many years in the pharma, biotechnology and business world, she went back to psychology. She earned both her Master of Arts degree in Clinical Psychology and her Doctor of Psychology degree at the California Institute of Integral Study in San Francisco. 

Serving as a psychoanalyst at The Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis in San Francisco (where she is a Board Member), Cécile facilitates clinical and theoretical seminars on Lacan and Freud, usually online.

Among her other titles, she is a member of the Philadelphia Lacan Study Group (PLSG), Affiliated Psychoanalytical Workshop (APW), and Das Unbehagen (DU), a free association for psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques that deal in part with the unconscious mind, and which together form a method of treatment for mental disorders. Psychoanalysts help patients tap into their unconscious mind to recover repressed emotions and deep-seated, sometimes forgotten experiences. By gaining a better understanding of their subconscious mind, patients acquire insight into the internal motivators that drive their thoughts and behaviors.

On a more personal note, Cécile speaks several languages, including English, French, and Spanish.

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