Real World Clinical Social Work

Dr. Danna Bodenheimer, LCSW, lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. After leaving New York City in 2004, she had no idea that love for another city was possible. But working and living as a social worker in Philadelphia has demonstrated, for her, the beauty of her city.

Danna graduated from Smith College, earning her bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies. After wholeheartedly planning on attending a Ph.D. program in psychology, going so far as to get her post-baccalaureate degree in psychology from Columbia University, Danna discovered the intricate beauty and possibility that social work offers. Turning down psychology programs to receive her MSW from Smith College, and returning to her educational roots in Northampton, Danna found her clinical self. After completing two internships in Philadelphia, one in a partial day treatment program and another at a school for psychoanalysis, Danna began her career at the Tuttleman Counseling Center at Temple University.

Three years later, while in the middle of her doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her DSW, Danna began a teaching career and her own private practice. Having taught at Rutgers, Temple, and the University of Pennsylvania, Danna has settled into teaching at Bryn Mawr’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. She teaches clinical practice and classes on gender and sexuality. Danna is now the head of the Walnut Psychotherapy Center, a trauma-informed outpatient setting that she founded, specializing in the treatment of the LGBTQ population. Danna spends her time supervising, practicing psychotherapy, teaching, and consulting. She is the mother of two amazing young boys and lives in Philadelphia with her wife. She uses Philadelphia as a landscape to study issues of oppression, intersecting identities, and complex socioeconomic struggle.

Danna received the 2011-2012 Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Pennsylvania. She was also selected as a fellow for the American Psychoanalytic Association for 2012-2013. She is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) in Pennsylvania.