Me and DBT
As I prepare materials for a large training and consultation project here in my community, in partnership with a local multisite substance use disorder treatment provider, I’ve been reflecting over the last twenty-six years of my work as a mental health professional.
My first post-graduate school professional work started with a case manager position for the wonderful community health agency, Luke-Dorf, Inc., now New Narrative, in Tigard, OR, adjacent to Portland, OR, the city where I would later move into work with a mental health triage center as a crisis counselor for Portland Providence Medical Center. This crisis work supplemented the income and experiences I was beginning to earn as a therapist in private practice with the Portland DBT Program, working under and with its founder, Soonie Kim, PhD., which at present is owned and directed by Linda Dimeff, PhD. who has developed this once humble practice into the internationally recognized Portland DBT Institute.
Over the years, I’ve also had the opportunity to work in outpatient substance use disorder clinics, such as the admirable Seventh Direction, Inc. in Wichita, KS, where I provided mindfulness-based and DBT-informed treatment interventions with mostly adjudicated teens and adults, and the ubiquitous Preferred Family Health for which I worked in the capacity of guest services and life skills training for their inpatient facility in Winfield, KS as well as as a counselor for their intensive outpatient (IOP) and outpatient services, and provided DBT-informed training to our teams.
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