Dr. Alex Klein, Psy.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist (PSY 26996)
Psychotherapy and Assessment with Children, Adolescents, and Adults
Dr. Alex Klein, PsyD is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in child and family therapy, neurodevelopmental differences such as autism spectrum conditions and ADHD, and parenting. He received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has training in child, adolescent, and adult psychotherapy and assessment with clients who present with a range of diagnoses. He works at the Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center and also has a private practice. His primary interests include neurodiversity-informed care, couples and family therapy, contemporary psychodynamic theory, social justice, trauma, parenting challenging children, education, integrative approaches to psychotherapy, and the supervision and training of graduate students. A former teacher and school-based therapist, Dr. Klein consults with school districts to help develop more appropriate learning environments for challenging students. Dr. Klein’s greatest joys are spending time with his family and friends, music, and exploring the outdoors with his wife and twin daughters in the Bay Area.
My approach to assessment is one that is collaborative, focused, and hopefully therapeutic in and of itself. Primarily, I assess children and adults for diagnoses such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), ADHD, and/or Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). Those clients who require quite detailed neuropsychological testing identifying learning disabilities or more complex processing differences, I may refer you to a colleague to work with instead of or in collaboration with me.
I have considerable experience assessing children and teens whose families (or the youth themselves) believe that other evaluators may have missed an autism presentation. Families may also be trying to better understand their child, seeking a diagnosis for the first time, or seeking consultation and opinions on previous assessments.
Many of the neurodivergent adults I have assessed came to me with an understandable fear of being dismissed, for many providers or family members may have had negative and stereotyped reactions to their efforts to seek an autism diagnosis, for example. Together we work to understand their experience in the world, their symptoms, and what might be helpful moving forward.
I am informed by Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment approaches, the DIR/floortime Model, Dr. Ross Greene’s Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS, sometimes referred to as collaborative problem solving). and I try to integrate principles from contemporary neuroscience to understand human behavior.
As an ADHD-er myself, I strive to be neurodiversity-affirming in all that I do. One of my primary goals in any assessment or therapy case is to increase understanding, and with that comes increased compassion, whether that is toward oneself, a child, or a partner.