FRANCINE TODER, Ph.D.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. to a working class, uneducated family—limited future prospects!

• Had the fantasy to be a foreign correspondent. Went to work after high school at Time Inc., magazine publisher, and worked at Time, Sports Illustrated, Life, and other imprints as "mail girl." Met educated and interesting writers, researchers, editors. Passion for learning emerged.

• Started college at night at Baruch College of the City University of New York, found calling in psychology, worked as bookkeeper and other odd-jobs. Somehow graduated and found my way to graduate school—worked as teacher, college counselor along the way to make ends meet.

• Armed with M.A., Ph.D. and a couple of post docs, one at Camarillo State Hospital in CA, made my way in the world along with my young son as a single parent.

• Having a passion for learning and communicating, found jobs that fit—academia for 26 years and private practice as licensed clinical psychologist.

• Wrote my first book in 1986, Your Child is Gone: Learning to Live Again, (Ballantine Books, N.Y.). Full circle—first love, writing, combined with a psychologist's understanding.

• Most awesome and gruesome experience as psychologist: having had training and experience in disaster mental health, was deployed to ground zero after the attack on the World Trade Center in NYC. Spent 3 weeks dividing my time between ground zero and the Staten Island site where body parts were identified. Wrote article about this, of course!

• Started playing the cello after retirement, and, naturally, wrote my 3rd book, The Vintage Years: Finding Your Inner Artist (Writer, Musician, Visual Artist) After Sixty, that highlights the best way to stimulate the brain and enhance well-being past sixty.

• My 5th book, Your Kids are Grown: Parenting 2.0, will be published September, 2025, with tools for:

  • improving contact with your adult-kids,

  • fine tuning your own life,

  • and enhancing your relationship with your partner.

 

Your Kids are Grown: Parenting 2.0: It isn't just our adult-kids who change. We, as parents, continue to grow and change throughout our lives; we don’t stop at adulthood.  To complicate matters, our adult-children continue to grow and change during their adult lives.  At any moment in time, when we wish to communicate with them, we are all in a unique, dynamic state that differs from any other point in time.  How terribly complicated and confusing this all gets!  The only "post-parental" roles are the ones which you must now create for yourself.

 

My 4th book: Inward Traveler: 51 Ways to Explore the World Mindfully, 2018, is a paperback, convenient to carry as you travel, and is available in bookstores and online (see details in another section of this website). I am also a contributor to the following magazines: Psychology Today, Thrive Global, Next Avenue and Huffington Post.  See my posts in the Publications section of this website.

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2023: I began offering workshops in Guided Autobiography, a way to write, share stories from your life, and get positive feedback. Life is story, expressed in writing on various themes with useful prompts for each. Every session takes place in a small group setting which benefits from my skill as a psychologist, therapist, and non-fiction writer. It's not therapy but is definitely therapeutic.

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