Chad Gillette
LICSW
Psychoanalyst & Psychotherapist
High-functioning doesn’t mean unhurt.
It often means you learned to carry it exceptionally well.
About the work
Most people who find their way here have already tried things. Therapy, maybe more than once. Coaching. Meditation. The usual inventory of self-improvement. And something has shifted, or been managed — but the underlying thing is still there.
This is often because what looks like a problem is actually a solution — one that made perfect sense when it was formed. And sometimes the problem isn't something bad that happened, but something good that never did. Either way, these patterns don't yield to willpower, because in some sense they bear the deepest signature of everything you had to live through. They aren't mistakes to be corrected. They are you, trying to survive.
Often, the roots go back further than people expect. Sometimes to quieter wounds — a parent who was present in body but not really there, a family that didn't talk about the hard thing, a role you took on early that cost you something you couldn't name at the time. Sometimes to things more severe — experiences carried privately for years, things that were never spoken aloud. These experiences don't always look like trauma from the outside. But they shape the structures we carry into adult life, and they don't resolve on their own.
What I do is different in kind, not just degree. Psychoanalytic work at this depth isn't about insight as an endpoint. It's about the slow, sustained process of actually changing — not your circumstances, but the structures inside you that keep producing the same circumstances. That takes time, a particular kind of attention, and someone who can stay with you in the difficult places without rushing toward resolution.
There's a freer, more fully alive self waiting on the other side of this work. This is how you get there.
On contemplative practice
I've practiced and studied Buddhism for over 30 years — not as a therapeutic modality, and not as something I bring into sessions as technique. It's closer to the water I swim in. Hundreds of days of silent retreat, rigorous study, and a tradition that takes the nature of mind seriously have shaped how I understand suffering, attention, and what transformation actually looks like. Clients don't need to share that background. But it's present in how I work.
Who this is for
You're probably high-functioning. Successful by most measures. Thoughtful enough to know that something isn't right, and honest enough to want to find out what it is. You may have been in therapy before. You're not looking for coping strategies. You're ready for something more demanding — and more worthwhile.
Training & credentials
BA, Columbia University
MTS, Harvard Divinity School
MSW, Boston College
Four-year Psychoanalytic Training Program,
Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis
Licensed LICSW, Massachusetts
Licensed LCSW, Connecticut
In practice since 2001
Private pay only; superbills provided
Inquire about availability
To learn about whether this work might be right for you, reach out directly. I’m currently accepting a limited number of new clients in person in Northampton and via telehealth in MA and CT.