Valerie’s professional experience has been a mixture of individual therapy addressing depression, anxiety, mood disorders, grief, trauma, relational struggles and substance abuse, and group therapy ranging from teaching life skills to adolescents, as well as groups with adults dealing with a variety of issues including depression, anxiety, anger management and co-existing mental health/substance abuse issues.

 

After earning her Bachelors in Social Work at Bethel University in St Paul, Minnesota, Valerie spent about 10 years working with adolescents and young adults in a variety of settings. Eventually she returned to earn her Masters in Social Work at The University of Georgia and then worked in outpatient community mental health for a number of years.

She has been with the Athens DBT Center since 2016.

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Valerie is intensively trained and is the Team Leader and Supervisor at Athens DBT. She was trained in DBT by Behavioral Tech of Seattle, Treatment Implementation Collaborative and Charlie Swenson. In addition she is the team leader of consultation team at Athens DBT Center.

Valerie is also trained in the DBT protocol of Prolonged Exposure therapy to treat trauma for DBT clients.

In 2017, Valerie received additional training in DBT skills from Marsha Linehan

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In 2022, Valerie also had the opportunity to publish the 12-Week DBT Workbook. Additional areas of training and interest are trauma sensitive yoga, somatic approaches to trauma, and spiritual abuse.