Bay Area Psychotherapy Institute (BAPTI) was founded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public benefit corporation in 1993 by Robert Marino, Ph.D.

Dr. Marino is a clinical psychologist who had a vision for creating a space for new therapists to obtain clinical training in a private practice model while providing affordable therapy for the local community.

BAPTI now serves almost 300 clients per year, and provides about 4,000 psychotherapy sessions per year to the community. Over its 28-year history, BAPTI has trained approximately 160 therapists in the practice of psychotherapy.

Our mission is to provide high quality training to pre-licensed psychotherapists while providing affordable and responsive mental health services to clients in local communities at our Lafayette office in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We are also dedicated to offering the State of California with accessible and affordable telehealth services that incorporate a variety of psychotherapeutic approaches.

Our mission of providing affordable and responsive mental health services to the community can only be effectively accomplished with an ongoing firm commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in our services to clients and in the functioning of our organization. BAPTI

We welcome clients of all races, ethnicities, body sizes, religions, gender identities, sexual orientations and abilities.

We approach our work with diverse clients who may be marginalized in our society with cultural humility. We recognize the difficulty of many underserved groups to obtain responsive mental health care, and the fact that many in these communities do not feel safe physically and emotionally. We honor their lived experience.

In our training program, we prioritize learning that enables our therapists to effectively support diverse populations from a place of awareness and humility. Our training emphasizes the importance of the willingness to enter into our client’s world and honor their identities and experiences. 

We offer sliding scale fees, and our Mental Health Equity Fund helps to support very low fee psychotherapy for low-income clients so that we can support clients from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds.  

We recognize that in the past we have not done nearly enough as an organization to address issues relating to race, ethnicity and other dimensions of diversity. We are committed to doing better going forward. BAPTI is now dedicated to doing the personal and organizational work required to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in our employment and our mental health services.