RFT - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Dr. Robyn L. Gobin, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist with expertise in interpersonal trauma, the cultural context of trauma recovery, and evidence-based treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other trauma-related conditions. She directs the Transforming Trauma and Mental Health Research Laboratory in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, where she is a tenure-track Assistant Professor. Dr. Gobin's research investigates how individual, cultural, and societal factors lead to unique outcomes in the aftermath of interpersonal trauma. Dr. Gobin is consistently involved in public education and community service. She regularly speaks at community events and hosts workshops about mental health, self-care, and mindfulness. She holds leadership positions on national boards and non-profit committees and is active in clinical practice in Illinois. Her work has been recognized by the top professional associations in her field: she was the recipient of a Citizen Psychologist Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association (APA), the Carolyn Payton Early Career Award from the Society for the Psychology of Black Women (APA Division 35 Section 1), and she received Early Career Awards from her alma mater, Wesleyan College, and the National Register of Health Service Psychologists.

Andrew (Drew) Carr Ph.D is a psychologist at the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System and in Inner Space psychological Services. His primary clinical interest is working with individuals with co-occurring frontoexecutive and mental health symptoms, such as ADHD, TBI, and post-concussive individuals. He also has a background in working in men's health, neurobehavior, spirituality, neuropsychological assessment, training and supervision, and coaching. He established Momentum Center for Clinical Excellence, a training program for psychologists in Los Angeles. He also served as director of clinical training at various institutions. He has received advanced training in diverse CBS and CBA psychotherapies and regularly trains and researches in these fields.

Job Titles:

• Professor of Psychology

Kelly G. Wilson, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology and winner of multiple awards for teaching and mentoring at the University at Mississippi. He is Past President and Fellow of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. Wilson has devoted himself to the development and dissemination of ACT and its underlying theory and philosophy for the past 25 years, and has published more than 90 articles and chapters, as well as 11 books including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change, The Wisdom to Know the Difference: An ACT Workbook for Overcoming Substance Abuse, and most recently Using ACT to Treat Anorexia and the Spectrum of Anorectic Behavior. He has central interests in the application of behavioral principles to understanding topics such as purpose, meaning and values. In recent years, he has become fascinated by the link between ACT, evolution science, and the modern epidemic of chronic life-style illnesses. Wilson is a co-founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and has presented workshops and provided consultancy in 32 countries. Dr. Wilson provides clinical and research consultancy through OneLife, LLC. Information on Dr. Wilson's consultancy and workshops can be found at www.onelifellc.com. He may be contacted through the contact link at that website or at kellygwilson@icloud.com.

Manuela O'Connell earned her Psychology degree at Universidad de Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is a peer-reviewed ACT trainer and Fellow for Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. She is also a Certified Mindfulness Teacher (MMTCP - Two Year program through U.C. Berkley's Greater Good Science Center with Dr. Jack Kornfield/Dr. Tara Brach - Accredited by IMTA.org). Manuela is also a Professor at Universidad Favaloro and a trainer of ACT and mindfulness in different countries in South America. Author of Una Vida valiosa and ACT book for general public and collaborator in The heart of ACT. Finally, Manuela is co-author of The ACT Workbook for Anger: Manage Emotions and Take Back Your Life with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

Lindsay C. Gibson, Psy.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist with over 35 years of experience as a psychotherapist working in both public and private practice. Dr. Gibson holds both a masters and a doctorate in clinical psychology. In the past, Dr. Gibson has served as an adjunct assistant professor for the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology, teaching doctoral psychology students clinical theory and psychotherapeutic techniques. Dr. Gibson is the author of three books: Who You Were Meant to Be, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, and Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents, as well as a fourth on Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents which will be coming out in September, 2021. She has also written a monthly column on well-being for Tidewater Women magazine (www.tidewaterwomen.com) for over twenty years. Her website is available at www.drlindsaygibson.com. Dr. Gibson lives and works in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Job Titles:

• Founder of the McLean OCD Institute for Children

Lisa Coyne, PhD, is the Founder of the McLean OCD Institute for Children and Adolescents at McLean Hospital, and is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. She also founded and directs the New England Center for OCD and Anxiety (NECOA), and is on the faculty of the Behavior Therapy Training Institute (BTTI) of the International OCD Foundation. She is also a licensed psychologist and an internationally recognized peer-reviewed ACT trainer. She has written extensively about applying acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) with children and adolescents. Her titles include The Joy of Parenting, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Adolescent Anxiety and OCD: A Family-Based Approach, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Clinician's Guide to Supporting Parents, and Stuff That's Loud: A Teen's Guide to Unspiralling When OCD Gets Noisy.

Job Titles:

• Social Worker

Matt Boone is a social worker, psychotherapist, writer, and speaker who specializes in acceptance and commitment therapy. Over the years, his ability to present complex material in experiential, easy-to-understand ways has made ACT more accessible to health professionals all over North America. He is the co-author of Stop Avoiding Stuff: 25 Microskills to Face Your Fears and Do It Anyway, a short, easy-to-use self-help book that breaks concepts from ACT and positive psychology into bite-size practices. He is an Association of Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) peer-reviewed ACT trainer who regularly runs ACT workshops around the country. He is also a former consultant for the VA ACT for Depression training rollout, has taught ACT at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Social Work for five years, and has published a variety of articles and book chapters on ACT. He is the editor of the book Mindfulness and Acceptance in Social Work: Evidence-Based Interventions and Emerging Applications. He lives in Little Rock with his wife, cat, and guitars.

Michael P. Twohig, PhD, is well known for his work in the use of ACT for OCD and anxiety disorders. Twohig is a psychologist in Utah and a professor in the psychology department at Utah State University, where he trains graduate students on ACT for anxiety disorders. He is past president of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), the organization most heavily aligned with ACT. He has written more than 200 scholarly publications and seven books, and he has received funding from many organizations, including the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Dr. Berens received his Ph.D. in behavior analysis from the University of Nevada under the supervision of Dr. Steven Hayes. He has served on several professional boards including the Standard Celeration Society, Nevada Association for Behavior Analysis, and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science's education special interest group. Berens is an experienced applied researcher and has published and presented in the areas of core behavioral process related to language and development, the merits of the scientist practitioner model, Relational Frame Theory, Precision Teaching, and program evaluation. He and the Fit Learning team have implemented the system with over 1,500 children ages 3-18 years old. Dr. Berens is currently operating Fit Learning's Tri-State area lab's and assisting in the refinement of the model with a focus on more efficiently disseminating the model. He currently lives in Long Island with his wife and two children.

Robyn D. Walser, PhD, works as a consultant, workshop presenter, and therapist in her private business, TLConsultation Services. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Nevada, Reno. During her graduate studies, she developed expertise in traumatic stress, substance abuse, and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). She has been doing ACT workshop trainings, both nationally and internationally, since 1998, training in multiple formats and for multiple client problems.

Job Titles:

• Social Worker

Sheri is a Social Worker, who has been working in the mental health field since 2000. She has been working with clients with severe mental health problems, both in private practice and at a community hospital since 2004. Sheri has had extensive training in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and mindfulness and has been providing DBT-informed therapy to individuals and groups since 2004. Sheri is the author of several books that focus on helping readers learn DBT skills and apply them to a variety of mental health problems, including The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder, Calming the Emotional Storm, and Don't Let Your Emotions Run Your Life for Teens. In 2013, she published DBT Made Simple, with the aim of making the therapy more accessible to both clients and clinicians; and to help clinicians see that this treatment can be used to effectively treat many different emotional problems. Her most recent book, The DBT Workbook for Emotional Relief was released in 2022. Sheri has been presenting extensively on DBT and conducting DBT workshops for mental health professionals in Canada and abroad. Sheri is the winner of the R.O. Jones award for her research on using DBT with bipolar disorder, presented at the Canadian Psychiatric Association Conference in September, 2010. Sheri has built a reputation for herself as an expert in providing DBT - informed therapy and works from a trauma-informed perspective. In recent years Sheri has also become certified in providing Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and is currently working towards becoming an EMDR Consultant; has been training in Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR); and has become a certified Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) provider.

Job Titles:

• Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University

Stefan G. Hofmann, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University, where he directs the Psychotherapy and Emotion Research Laboratory. He was former president of Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies and president of the International Association for Cognitive Psychotherapy, and was an advisor to the DSM-5 development process. He is the editor-in-chief of Cognitive Therapy and Research and the Associate Editor of Clinical Psychological Science. Stefan is the recipient of many awards, including a Humboldt Research Award, and has been included in the list of Highly Cited Researcher since 2015. He has published more than 400 peer-reviewed journal articles and 20 books. His research area focuses on clinical translational studies, mechanism of treatment change, affective neuroscience, pharmacological augmentation of psychotherapy, emotion regulation, neuromarkers of treatment prediction, and developing new forms of psychotherapy, emotion regulation, and cultural expressions of psychopathology. Weblink: http://www.bostonanxiety.org/

Stephen W. Porges, Ph.D. is Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University where he is the founding director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium. He is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Professor Emeritus at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland. He served as president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences and is a former recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Development Award. He has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers across several disciplines including anesthesiology, biomedical engineering, critical care medicine, ergonomics, exercise physiology, gerontology, neurology, neuroscience, obstetrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, psychology, psychometrics, space medicine, and substance abuse. In 1994 he proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological state in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders. The theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders. He is the author of The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation (Norton, 2011), The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe, (Norton, 2017), Polyvagal Safety: Attachment, Communication and Self-Regulation (Norton, 2021), and co-editor of Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory: The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies (Norton, 2018). He is the creator of a music-based intervention, the SSP (Safe and Sound Protocol™), which currently is used by more than 1400 therapists to reduce hearing sensitivities, and to improve language processing, state regulation, and spontaneous social engagement.

Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is Nevada Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of more than forty books and nearly 600 scientific articles, his career has focused on an analysis of the nature of human language and cognition and the application of this to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering. Hayes has been president of Division 25 of the American Psychological Association, the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology, the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, and of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. He was the first secretary-treasurer of the Association for Psychological Science, which he helped form and has served a five-year term on the National Advisory Council for Drug Abuse in the National Institutes of Health. In 1992 he was listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as the 30th "highest impact" psychologist in the world. His work has been recognized by several awards including the Exemplary Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research and Its Applications from Division 25 of APA, the Impact of Science on Application award from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.

Job Titles:

• Clinical Psychologist

Tara Deliberto, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and the primary author of the book Treating Eating Disorders in Adolescents, published by New Harbinger. Alongside maintaining a small private practice, Dr. Deliberto teaches courses on the treatment of eating disorders to clinicians around the world and helps communities to develop eating disorder programs. Dr. Deliberto also teaches body image workshops for the public and has created consumer content for the cutting-edge psychoeducational platform, Resiliens. Prior to these roles, she created and directed NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital's eating disorders partial hospitalization program for adults and served on the faculty of Cornell University's medical college. Dr. Deliberto has held leadership positions in the Academy for Eating Disorders and New York City CBT Association, as well as served on the editorial board of Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention. Her work has been widely cited in the academic literature and has been cited in major media outlets.