Dr. Benveniste received his training in the San Francisco Bay Area and worked there for many years. He did his undergraduate and master’s level clinical psychology training at San Francisco State University and earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology – Berkeley/Alameda Campus (now called Alliant University). In San Francisco, he maintained a private practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy working with adults, couples, adolescents, children and families seeking assistance for a wide variety of problems. For over 25 years, he also devoted much of his time to community mental health. He worked in community outpatient clinics, a crisis clinic, and in residential treatment settings.
In his private practice, Dr. Benveniste worked in conjunction with public and private schools and was a member of the Psychological Professional Group of the San Francisco Police Department seeing police officers and their families in psychotherapy. The Department of Mental Health in the city of San Francisco also confidently referred many AIDS patients to him for psychotherapy.
He has supervised psychologists in training for many years and was the Director of Training in two programs for doctoral level psychology students – La Familia Counseling Service in Hayward, California and the Nevitt Sanford Initiative in Fairfield California. He also taught graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley, The Wright Institute and the California School of Professional Psychology – Alameda Campus.