Mark L. Ruffalo, MSW, DPsa

Mark L. Ruffalo, M.S.W., D.Psa., is a psychotherapist in private practice in Tampa, Florida, and serves as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine. He has experience in the psychoanalytic treatment of a range of psychiatric conditions with particular interest in the psychotherapy of schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder.

During his training at the University of Pittsburgh, Mark had the opportunity to work with severely ill patients in long-term psychotherapy, an area in which he has developed recognized expertise. He has published previously in the American Journal of Psychotherapy, the Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, and the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. He currently serves as Co-Director of the Psychotherapy Track at the UCF/HCA Orlando Psychiatry Residency Program and is the Founding Editor of The Carlat Psychotherapy Report.

His current research interests include the object relations theory of borderline personality disorder; communication dilemmas, paradoxes, and double binds in personality pathology; and deficits in logical reasoning in psychotic and borderline states. He has advanced the hypothesis that borderline personality is fundamentally a disorder of paradox or self-contradiction.

He is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Excellence in Psychotherapy Supervision and Teaching Award from the UCF psychiatry residency program. In 2025, he was selected as Chair of the Special Report on Psychotherapy for Psychiatric Times.

Mark sees patients at his private office in Tampa on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. He frequently works in collaboration with psychiatrists but does not prescribe medication. He is licensed in Florida as a clinical social worker (LCSW).