Licensed California clinical psychologist (PSY7301) Ellen B. Margolis, Ph.D. earned her doctorate in psychology from United States International University in San Diego after a Master's in counseling from San Diego State, and helped found the San Diego Family Stress Center, the county's first dedicated treatment program for child abuse, neglect, and molestation. Her three-year postdoctoral training in adult psychodynamic psychotherapy and a separate two-year program in child and adolescent psychodynamic therapy puts her in the same depth-oriented clinical lineage as Dr. Melissa E. Munoz | Psychologist in the broader Hillcrest psychology community. Margolis spent eight years supervising graduate interns and staff at a residential crisis center for dual-diagnosis patients carrying co-occurring substance dependency and depression, anxiety, or trauma rooted in early-life abuse. She has also conducted bariatric surgery psychological clearance assessments for ten years, a presurgical mental-health workflow distinct from the disordered-eating treatment focus at Eating Disorder & OCD Therapy San Diego. Her most layered referral work involves independent-adoption counseling that runs concurrently with birthmothers in their decision-making, adoptive families integrating birthmother contact, and adult adoptees later processing identity questions tied to their adoption.