Rachel Levenfeld, LCSW

About Me

I first became interested in social work in high school. After watching a documentary about the barriers marginalized communities face in accessing medical care, I began volunteering with a social justice organization that delivered meals to people living in poverty and those with chronic illnesses.

I continued working with social justice organizations throughout college and began developing a passion for perinatal mental health while working at a community health agency in Boston. There, I noticed the lack of services available for people who were pregnant and postpartum, and I saw the impact that gap had on families as a whole.

I decided I was most interested in providing direct therapeutic care, so I moved to Los Angeles and attended the University of Southern California, where I earned my Master of Social Work in 2006.

As a trauma-informed therapist, I worked in community mental health for several years, supporting people navigating a wide range of mental health concerns. In that work, I saw firsthand how difficult it could be for people to communicate their mental health needs to their medical providers.

In 2014, I began working with the Psychiatry department at Kaiser Permanente, a large hospital in Los Angeles. In that role, I was able to provide care to people experiencing perinatal mental health concerns while also advocating for my clients by communicating their mental health needs with their medical team.

In 2020, fresh off my own maternity leave, I designed and facilitated the hospital’s first Postpartum Intensive Outpatient Program.

I moved back to Chicago in 2022, where I continue to provide individual therapy for people navigating mental health concerns during and after pregnancy. My clinical approach is client-centered, trauma-informed, and informed by psychodynamic and intersectional feminist theory.