Rachel Lindheim, PhD

Rachel is an expert in corporate culture, organizational psychology, and the internal dynamics of high-performance workforces. Her work bridges clinical insight with organizational design, drawing on deep experience at the intersection of individual psychology and institutional behavior.

A licensed clinical social worker (LCSW), Rachel maintains an active psychotherapy practice with clients across the technology, financial services, professional services, creative, healthcare, and media sectors. This gives her a rare vantage point into the lived psychology of highly skilled professionals—not just as employees, but as whole individuals navigating performance across work and life. Her clinical approach blends depth psychology with systems thinking and a nuanced understanding of stress, adaptation, and identity in organizational settings.

Rachel’s work centers on how exogenous events—from macroeconomic shocks to geopolitical disruptions—reshape individual and group dynamics. Together with Marc Babej, she originated the concept of exogenous factor anxiety to describe how external volatility affects morale, cohesion, and performance.

She holds an M.S.W. from the NYU Silver School of Social Work and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). Before entering clinical practice, Rachel was a tenure-track professor of art history, with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and an M.A. from Williams College. She also holds a B.A. in French Literature from Williams College. Her academic work has been recognized with awards from organizations including the American Association of University Women and the Social Science Research Council of Canada. She speaks fluent French and conversational German.